What you Should Look for in Identity Theft Protection Services
Posted July 22, 2011
Before you select which identity theft protection service you are going to use, make sure that you read everything that they offer and the amount it is going to cost each month for the service. It might be a good idea to write down the identity theft services you are considering using along what they offer and the monthly payment. After doing all your research online, you can take your papers, sit down and compare each site with the other to make sure that you are getting the best deal for your money and give you the services you are looking for.
One thing that you need to make sure that the company you are considering is actually a service that monitors identity theft and not just a credit monitoring service. You should also make sure that the company will watch information in public and commercial databases plus online sites. Some of the identity theft protection companies also monitor those underground websites where the identity thieves trade in the information they have stolen.
Check with the various identity theft protection agencies such as LifeLock to see just what their monitoring services cover. When it is just credit monitoring, this is usually against fraud on new accounts, which occurs when an identity thief uses your information to open a new credit card, cell phone or any other financial account using your name. This type of service only monitors but does not stop the identity thief from opening a new account.
You also need to know just what services their monitoring services do not cover. You need to see which credit bureaus the identity theft monitoring services gets their reports from, how often it gets the reports, and if you have unlimited access to your credit scores and reports.
One of the main things you need to look for in an identity theft protection service is whether they are offering services that you cannot do yourself or find anywhere else. You should look at all the services they offer and see if there are any extra services they offer that you cannot get from any of the other identity theft protection services.
You should also look to see if any the companies that you are considering performs additional identity monitoring such as does the service track whether someone is using your address, or if someone is receiving medical treatment under your name. If they do more than just monitor your credit, then this is the company you should select.
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