Do-it-yourself solutions
The first thing we discovered is that in general, Redditors are skeptical of the identity theft protection industry as a whole, preferring instead to freeze their own credit as a method of defense. This involves contacting each of the three credit bureaus individually and placing a hold to prevent anyone from opening accounts using your details. Alternatively, there are recommendations for using a free service like Credit Karma to do the work for you. However, as one Redditor pointed out, Credit Karma is by no means perfect and isn’t as reliable as some of the more specialist identity theft protection solutions.
Another Redditor hit the nail on the head by mentioning that identity theft protection is not just about credit scores and monitoring – there are other features customers rely on. One of the major draws of identity theft protection is the recovery process these services provide, which can save hours and hours of making phone calls and filling out forms – a stressful and time-consuming process. And it’s always reassuring to have an identity theft expert available on the other end of a phone to guide you through the process and reduce the burden.
LifeLock’s past not forgotten
LifeLock in particular suffered a hammering from Reddit users, thanks to an old publicity stunt of ex-CEO Todd Davis. Davis famously displayed his social security number in public to prove how effective LifeLock was, only for it to be used by fraudsters 13 times. Given the circumstances, it’s impressive the number was so low. Then there was the 2015 false advertisement lawsuit which also deterred many Reddit users from the platform. Sometimes not all publicity is good publicity, and Reddit has a very long memory for this kind of thing.
Despite those setbacks, it’s worth noting that in recent years LifeLock’s overall reputation has only improved, culminating in it being acquired by security giant Symantec.
Success stories
There are some success stories on Reddit too, one example being a Redditor who was helped by Identity Guard. The user owed just $1.78 to a bank, but this debt had dropped their credit score by 300 points. Identity Guard was quick to alert the Redditor, and from there the user was able to rectify everything and restore their score. This is a good example of how identity theft protection can be helpful beyond just preventing fraudsters from accessing your accounts.
Another service recommended by Redditors is Zander Insurance’s ID theft solution, and a large part of that is due to its endorsement by radio host Dave Ramsey. IDShield has also earned praise on Reddit, thanks to its 24/7 monitoring and because IDShield hires private investigatorsto help restore your identity in case of a breach.
Daniel C.
Inês P.
