Lock your life

Lifelock: proactive security for your identity

I've recently discovered a service called Lifelock. The CEO's so confident that their service works that he publishes his social security number on the home page. Must be something to it!

Lifelock promises a proactive identity theft solution. They help to unsubscribe you from all of the credit card offers, etc. because they are a potential source of ID theft. They have an agreement with the major credit bureaus and monitor your credit history for unauthorized access. So, not if, but when someone tries to use your identity they'll get shut out, identified and you'll be safe.

Now if that doesn't sound like enough, they will also insure your identity up to $1,000,000.00 (US). That pays for attorney's fees, losses, etc.

All of that protection for just $10.00 for each enrolled adult. You can even protect your kids (under 16) for just an additional $25.00 a year.

It's worth checking out!

Go to Lifelock's homepage to see what they can do for you to keep your identity safe!

Update (6/4/2008):
Okay, I know that Todd Davis (Lifelock's spokesman) had his identity stolen - sort of - several times. But, he also had his SSN on billboards and plastered on the internet. So, you might conclude that it works pretty well, but it's not perfect. The nice thing is that the insurance will help pay to get your situation resolved.

However! What Lifelock offers is also something that you can do for free (thanks to this handy slashdot.org comment):

Step 1: Call Experian (1-888-397-3742) and have them put a fraud alert on your file. They'll pass it on to the other 2 credit bureaus (Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 & TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289).
Step 2: Repeat step 1 every 90 days.

Of course, it's good to go get your free annual credit report from the real non-commercial credit watch website. Don't confuse this with freecreditreport.com. That site is run by Experian and is just a way to sell you the same protection that Lifelock offers (except, only for Experian).

Finally, don't forget to look into how to stop postal spam. There's no need to get all the garbage in the mail with all of the "special" credit card offers with a bunch of your personal information already filled in.