TrustedID has a family plan that includes all adults and children living in the house whereas LifeLock only has individual protection. If you have a family and want to make sure they all are protected, then the Trusted Id service would be the better plan.

IDFreeze is the signature product that comes with TrustedID and includes the following:

Family Protection
They offer Lender DoubleCheck™ and warranty coverage for all adults living in your household.

Lender DoubleCheck™
With IDFreeze™, credit grantors will have to get your approval by phone before taking any action that may affect your credit. Contact information is provided in a special note on your Equifax, Experian and TransUnion credit reports.

CreditLock™
Credit Lock allows an individual to direct the three credit bureaus to only release their credit reports to third parties with permission. This service requires a customer to take the step of unlocking their credit reports before they apply for credit. This feature is currently available in all states at an additional cost, where laws allow consumers to lock their credit reports.

Credit Report Evaluation
Automatically receive your credit report from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion annually and review your credit history to ensure your identity has not been compromised.

$1,000,000 Warranty
We back our service with a $1,000,000 limited warranty to cover out of pocket costs associated with identity theft not covered by IDFreeze. 

LIVE Idenity Theft Specialists
Get answers from an identity theft and restoration specialist any time, via telephone or email.

Stop Pre-Approved Credit Card Offers
Removes your name from the marketing databases frequently sold by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Stops pre-approved credit card offers – a leading source of identity theft.

Credit Card Monitoring
Monitors your credit card number to help detect if it has been stolen. You receive an immediate email alert when IDFreeze™ finds signs that your information has been compromised, providing an early warning of theft.

The prices for TrustedID are also very similar to Life Lock except that the family plan is a much better deal. The one year family plan costs $189.99 wereas the for LifeLock it would be about $90.00 per person. Trusted ID also has an individual plan for $99.00. You can also pay monthly for both of those services but it is slightly more that way.

Idenity theft is a big problem that will only get bigger it seems in the coming years as identity theives learn new technologies. TrustedID is one of the services that can help you sleep a little easier at night.

DON’T EVER RESPOND TO ANY EMAIL LIKE THIS FROM THE IRS. This is a phishing scam and ID thieves are at the other end of that email. The IRS will not contact you by email and this one is not legitimate. It is preying on the people who have heard or are waiting for thier rebate checks.

It is emails like this that are at the heart of idenity theft. ID theives are constantly at work trying to trick you and with the technology available today, they can make any email look like it is official. Again, don’t fall for this latest scheme to rob you of your identity. DO NOT RESPOND TO ANY EMAIL THAT APPEARS TO BE COMING FROM THE IRS.

These pre approved credit applications are exactly what the ID theives are looking for when they search your garbage or steal your mail. Identity thieves will take your credit card application and change the address to their address or PO box and then send it in. They are hoping to get a brand new credit card sent to them without you even knowing it.

That is why it is so important for you to shred all your finacial statements and junk mail. It really should be against the law for these companies to be sending out pre filled credit card applications that anyone can get a hold of. An ID thief is always on the lookout for something like that that he can use to pretend to be you and send in. Department store credit applications are a similar type of mail that you need to make sure you shred.

If an identity theif steals your mail, you never even know what he has stolen. That is why these credit card applications are so bad and should be banned. If your mail is stolen and the ID thief pretends to be you and sends in your application, you will not even know about it until it is too late. Then you will be left wondering, “how to fix my credit“? So beware and shred that junk mail that has any of your personal information on it. You need to make it as hard as possible for identy theft to happen.

Credit card fraud is the most common type of ID theft.  With enough identifying information about an individual, an identity thief can take over that individual’s identity to conduct a wide range of crimes. Some examples are false applications for loans and credit cards, fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts, fraudulent use of telephone calling cards, or obtaining other goods or privileges which the criminal might be denied if he were to use his real name.  If you think you might be a victim, or just want to tighten up the security of your credit, you can tell the major credit bureaus to place a “fraud alert” on your credit file.  

Identity theft victims can find resources for legal protection and dealing with banks and creditors. Unfortunately, the damage that criminals do in stealing another person’s identity and using it to commit fraud often takes far longer to undo than it took the criminal to commit the crimes.

With the recent news of upcoming tax rebate checks, identity theft criminals have once again found a way to make a good thing go bad. Unfortunately, we will most likely see a rash of idenity related crimes start to happen once these checks are issued. ID theives will be trying their best to get their hands on these checks and cash them. It is sad that we have to constantly be on the lookout for and trying to prevent identity theft.

If you take a look at LifeLock you will see that the service offered is good enough to protect your identity. Compare LifeLock’s service with a credit monitoring company and you will find that their service is much better. All a credit monitoring company does is inform you about any unusual activity on your accounts. LifeLock actually informs you before someone can use the information on your account.

It is next to impossible to protect yourself from identity theft but you can take a proactive stance towards it. When you sign up for LifeLock you will need to give them a lot of personal account information and some information about you. You need to give them this info so that they can establish who you are – remember we are talking about someone stealing your identity and saying they are you.

LifeLock will then contact three major credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and EquiFax and after a maximum of seven days, you will receive a confirmation request about locking your accounts from the credit bureaus. Then, after a month or so, you will get your credit reports from all three of those credit bureaus and you will know that everything is OK on your accounts.

During the span of your membership, LifeLock will make sure that you are blocked from receiving those pre-approved credit card offers. They will contact the credit card companies and you will see this kind of mail dimish after about 2 months. This is a nice feature that you would never be able to do yourself.

LifeLock will continuously monitor your account and if someone were to try to use or access anything having to do with your credit, you will receive a phone call from them. They will ask you to approve or deny the credit. This is the wonderful part about the service. You don’t have to wonder whether bad things are happeing to your credit because you know that if anyone tries to access it in any way, LifeLock will be giving you a call. Idenity theftis a scary proposition now that computers have all our personal and financial information and we need to be proactive with LifeLock to protect ourselves.

John T. Healy shows recent newspaper headlines about himself as he sits in his Yardley, Pa., home. Healy, 47, has endured a nightmare over the past two weeks after learning that the man who apparently stole his identity two years ago was charged with, and ultimately convicted of, killing an upstate New York police officer.

Stories like this show that idenity theft can happen to anyone. The identity thief will take everything you own and make your life miserable until you can get things straightened out. That can take years and idenity thef is definitely something you want to avoid before it happens!

1) Have all your bills and financial statements sent to a PO Box. One of the most common ways a commits ID theft is to steal your mail. Most of the time that will be right from your own mailbox. When you have a PO Box, you are safe from the mail thiefs.

2) Mail all your letters that contain checks and personal information from the post office. Just like in the first example, thieves take your mail that is waiting for the postman too. If this mail has your checks or account numbers in it, then you are at risk.  

3) Never put your social security number or any other account numbers on your checks. This is a basic idenity theft protection step that everyone should not do.   

4) Never give out your social security number unless you absolutely have to. When an institution asks for it, always ask them whether they have to have it. Many times they will admit that the SSN is not necessary but just a formality. Also, don’t carry your SSN with you. Memorize it and then lock the card up.

5) Shred all documents that have personal account information on it. ID thieves commonly look for this type of information in the trash. 

6) Never let your credit card or other account cards out of your site. It has become more common for employees of stores and restaurants to make copies of cards in the back room while they are “charging” your card.  

7) Don’t give personal account information to callers on the telephone or to anyone online. ID theives are becoming increasingly tricky with the elaborate and convincing stories they tell to get you to give them your numbers.  

8 – Likewise, the fake email scam that says your account has been disabled and to please sign in and give your password is a very common type of email nowadays. Be very careful of this type of email.  

• First the identity theif will change the billing address on your credit cards. This means the bills will not go to you but to some other address. It can be months before you realize something is wrong.
• Then the thief will of course charge up as much as they can before you realize something is amiss. 
• The thief might open up a bank account in your name. He will then write bad checks against it.
• The thief may take out a loan using your name.
• The thief might use your name and Social Security number to get government benefits.
• The thief might rent an apartment using your name
• The thief might try to get medical services using your name.
• The thief might use your personal information to police if they get arrested. If they do this, a warrant for your arrest could be issued at a future time. 

These are just a few of the terrible things that can result from idenity theft. Actually, you could just let your imagination run wild with all the bad things a thief could do with your identity and you would probably be right with most of them. The best course of action is always to try to prevent it before it happens.

1. Idenity thieves get your personal information by rummaging through your trash. They are looking for your account numbers, address, and any other information they can find out about you.
2. When you give someone your debit or credit card, they may be recording your information to use for themselves in the future.
3. Fake emails. They get you to give them your account numbers and passwords by sending you fake emails that look genuine. This is called “phishing” and Ebay and PayPal are two institutions that suffer greatly from this.
4. They change your address so that your credit card or billing statements are sent to them instead of you. Once they do this they have everything they need.
5. They steal your purse or wallet that has account numbers in it.

These are some of the ways idenity theft is carried out. Many times you will not know something is wrong until it is too late. That is why idenity theft is so scary and why you have to pay special attention to safeguarding and checking all your accounts. Here are some of the things a thief might do with your name if you become a victim fo idenity theft.