As of September 21, 2018, the identity theft protection industry has changed dramatically and gotten a little more confusing for consumers. Here is some information that should help you distinguish the differences between services in the identity theft industry.
Most consumers believe that credit monitoring will help prevent them from having an identity theft incident. Let’s consider this belief in order to understand what credit monitoring really does for the consumer. When a consumer purchases monitoring services, they feel that they are being protected, however, they are paying for services that they can receive for free through many credit card companies, banks, and other sources.
When the consumer enrolls in the credit monitoring service, they opt in to receive text or email alerts about activity on their credit record. Over time, people become numb to alerts because they are usually benign, and eventually people end up ignoring the alerts altogether. So, when something suspicious or truly fraudulent does come along, there is the likelihood that the person won’t notice it. But in the off chance that the person catches the alert that something suspicious has popped up on their credit report, what do they do about it?
Well, take a look at what is going on. A consumer has purchased a service that they can get for free through other institutions, while being told that monitoring is a protection measure. But in fact, they haven’t been protected at all. All that monitoring has done is told the person that something is not right. That is not protection at all!
This is where the industry gets tricky and it becomes very important to pay attention to semantics. Some companies offer a service called “RESOLUTION” for an identity theft problem. Based on the way most companies market their services on their websites or through advertisements, resolution may seem like the right thing to purchase. They help fix my stolen identity, right? WRONG! In fact, resolution services do just that, they HELP. This probably means the company will send you a packet that teaches you how to fix your own stolen identity. You have to do all of the hard work yourself. That means spending your vacation days or sick days on the phone with the IRS, credit bureaus, banks, etc. to try to prove your innocence and clear up a problem that you didn’t create. Good luck with that!
The best type of service for consumers to purchase is called fully managed identity theft restoration. Restoration means that the company will do everything on the victim’s behalf. The company will call all the appropriate agencies and institutions to prove the victim’s innocence. That means, as a victim, you will have peace of mind that things are being done correctly on your behalf. It also means you won’t have lost wages from the time that you would have to spend away from work, fixing a problem that you didn’t cause, because you fell for the play on words that made you believe you were really covered.
The verbiage is incredibly important when it comes to choosing an identity theft solution that’s right for you and your family. Look for “fully managed restoration” and only then will you be assured that you are truly covered when it comes to the difficult legwork of restoring a stolen identity.
The bottom line is that there’s really no better time than the present to become a LibertyID member for identity theft restoration services. LibertyID provides expert, full service, fully managed identity theft restoration to individuals, couples, extended families* and businesses. LibertyID has a 100% success rate in resolving all forms of identity fraud on behalf of our subscribers.
*Extended families – primary individual, their spouse/partner, both sets of parents (including those that have been deceased for up to a year), and all children under the age of 25