The LifeLock Controversy: Is There No Protection Against Identity Theft?
While elder abuse can take many forms, one method of elder abuse is identity theft. A common form of identity theft is where someone obtains your private confidential information and then uses it to obtain credit accounts. This pernicious problem was humorously illustrated in a series of television commercials from Citibank, including this one. Unfortunately, the problem of identity theft has become so prevalent that according to this article, a National Public Radio station in Madison, Wisconsin recently stopped using volunteers during its call-in pledge drive because the station can no longer obtain insurance coverage if one its volunteers were to misappropriate a contributor's credit card information.
A number of private organizations, including Citibank, have tried to remedy the identify theft problem but perhaps none with more confidence than LifeLock. In a series of nationally broadcast advertisements, LifeLock CEO Todd Davis brazenly broadcasted his name and social security number and dared anyone to steal his identity. According to this article, least 87 attempts have been made to misappropriate Mr. Davis’ identity and recently, one conniving person succeeded by convincing a pay-day lender to advance $500 based on Mr. Davis’ personal identification information. Now, customers in several states are suing claiming that LifeLock’s services don’t perform as advertised.
This recent lawsuit, however, is not the first group to be critical of LifeLock. In February 2008, the credit rating agency Experian sued LifeLock claiming, among other things, that LifeLock is overstating the effectiveness of its service. In this article, Experian points out that LifeLock’s services only help stop would-be thieves from opening new credit accounts; the service does not stop computer hacking or the wrongful use of an existing credit card (or credit card number—a problem confronted by the NPR station). Experian also correctly asserts that LifeLock’s main service, placing fraud alerts on your credit accounts, can be done by the consumer for free and claims that LifeLock is actually violating the law by pretending to make the requests on behalf of individual consumers. And this article goes even farther, discussing issues of veracity concerning one of LifeLock’s founders.
So what is a consumer to do? It is unlikely that LifeLock’s services will protect you from some of the worst forms of identity theft as described here. It is also true that many of the services LifeLock performs can be done by the consumer at no expense. But how many of us actually take the time to place fraud alerts on our accounts every 90 days? Taken in perspective, 87 failed attempts against the CEO’s personal information with only one $500 loss is not a bad record for such an obvious target. And I would hope that, if anything, the lawsuits will convince LifeLock to improve its services. If not, it seems likely that another provider—including one of the credit agencies—could provide a better version of a much needed service.
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