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Posts Tagged ‘Identity Theft Protection’

What Does LifeLock Do For You?

January 4th, 2012
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There are a number of ways you can help protect yourself from identity theft. Some work better than others. So I made a little comparison for you here to help out.

Doing it yourself is probably the most common way. That's because one of two things: you're in denial that identity theft can happen to you or that you think you're saving money by checking your free annual credit reports each year. Using this DIY method will only let you know you've become a victim long after the fact.

Credit card protection is another way you can choose. It comes from your credit card company. They will send you an alert if they notice suspicious activity. This is good, but it only monitors your credit card. This type of monitoring is for credit card fraud, not full-blown identity theft.

Credit monitoring is offered by the credit bureaus. They'll send you credit alerts for suspicious activity, monitor any address changes and send you your credit reports. Again, this is good because you have someone always looking out for you. But there are still more ways your identity can be stolen that they don't check for.

A LifeLock membership provides you with all the types of protection listed above and then keeps going. They will patrol over 10,000 criminal internet sites for illegal selling or trading of your information. LifeLock also gives you lost wallet protection which will help you to quickly change or replace your credit cards. And then there's what I like best about LifeLock – their $1 Million Total Service Guarantee. As a LifeLock member, if you become a victim of identity theft because of a failure in LifeLock®service, LifeLock will spend up to $1 million to hire experts to help your recovery.**(Restrictions apply. See www.lifelock.com for details.)

Knowing I have someone to help me every step of the way if my identity gets stolen is very important to me. I have been a LifeLock member now for almost 4 years. I can't imagine not having it. Every month, I get an email to let me know they've been watching out for me.

You get all this coverage with a LifeLock basic membership for only $9 a month or $99 a year when you use the LifeLock promo code "9".

Enroll today with your discount by clicking here.

**Due to New York state law restrictions, the LifeLock $1 Million Total Service Guarantee cannot be offered to residents of New York.

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Why Do I Need Identity Theft Protection?

December 27th, 2011
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Ten years ago, I never gave identity theft a second thought. Heck, I never really even knew what it was. But in the past decade, I've switched to mainly electronic banking, bill pay and credit card use. Shopping on the internet is one of my favorite things to do!

I try my best to be very careful about how I go about all this financial electronic transactions. For instance, I don't use my debit card when shopping online. That's probably one of the riskier things to do because it taps directly into your bank account. You don't get the same protections as you would with a credit card.

I also have made strong passwords for each financial site. Whatever you do, don't use your dog's or cat's name and then make it a default password for everything. An easy way to make a strong password is to think of a line from a favorite song and use the first letter of each word. Like this: "And she's climbing the stairway to heaven" would be "Asctsth'. Then tack on a few numbers you like before and after. Easy to remember, not so easy to guess.

No matter how careful I am though, there's always someone smarter than me, or you, or even the IT pros who create secure websites. Almost any site can be hacked and mined for your financial persona. So having an identity theft protection membership gives me some peace of mind to know that I'll have experts to turn to for help if I ever need them.

I use LifeLock because they will take charge of helping me work my way through an identity theft 'happening'. I also like the way I get monthly emails from them that let me know they've been watching for my personal information being used by someone other than myself. A LifeLock promo code will save you some money on your membership and get you off to a good start for the new year1

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Anyone's Identity Can Be Stolen

August 3rd, 2010
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No one is immune to identity theft. Rich – poor – famous – ordinary. We all are vulnerable to having our personal information stolen at any time no matter how much care we take to safeguard ourselves.

One of the ways that we are the most exposed is from data or security breaches. In so many instances, we've given our DOB and SSN along with address, spouse, children, insurance cards and more. Identity thieves know this and have made a point to target databases that contain large numbers of people.

Watching a trend from the PrivacyRights.org database of breaches, educational institutions, hospitals, insurance companies, banks and government agencies are tops on the list of security breaches. Many times its from something as careless as a laptop being taken home and just left sitting in the open. Other times, there's an insider employee who creates the leak. Or it can just simply be by throwing files in a dumpster.

One of the kickers is that the breach isn't even noticed right away.

Once your personal information is in the hands of criminals, it's going to sold and resold over and over again. You'll never know if or when you'll be attacked next.

I've personally had my identity stolen in 2002 and didn't even know it until I applied for a new mortgage in 2003. Up until then, no one talked much about fraud alerts, checking your credit reports or looking for your information being sold online. It didn't matter that my credit score was tanked by someone else – banks just looked at the score and turned me down or offered a loan with a higher interest rate.

When identity theft protection companies like LifeLock were created, I jumped on that boat right away.  I know this sounds like a cliche, but knowing I have someone watching out for me really does give me peace of mind.

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