Personal Consumer Issues • What value have you derived from "identity theft monitoring" services?

Question:

"Do any of you here use these services and if so, what information do they provide that is useful or actionable?"

(I do have my credit profile frozen at Equifax, Experian, and Transunion and I also check the free credit reports annually)

I do not find any value in the service(s) - I've read through what the services offer and it seems like I can do the majority of the things myself. I also don't live with anyone (most thefts are by people you know). The theft of the "deed to my house" is also highly unlikely because the County is in the 21st century and handles a hundred thousand (maybe more) deeds and what not. I also don't think someone would be able to get a mortgage or a car loan in my name without cooperation of someone(s) at a lender and/or the financial institutions I have accounts with (wide spread corruption).

As for regular old credit card fraud: My credit card accounts all have some sort of "fraud alert" stuff built in for free - as the card will contact me if too many purchases happen or for purchases over some dollar amount. basically the card company will shut down my card when they see some pattern that indicates fraud. I believe all of my cards even have some way for me to "lock my card".

I have a friend who suffers with anxiety and depression and I believe they get a lot of intangible "feel good" value from the identity theft monitoring service they pay for. They get visibly upset when the "scare ads" for identity theft appear on line or on tv. They get upset when they hear about "data breaches" and what not. Upset as in begin to ruminate on how they will loose all their money, loose their car, loose their house in the blink of an eye. sometimes they cannot shake it and start loosing sleep. They worry endlessly about the 2 CC's they have and start thinking maybe they should NOT have credit cards. They worry about their bank account(s) they worry about the spam phone calls and emails they get (as they might be part of the threat to their personal info)... and so the episode spirals out of control. The identity theft monitoring service gives them something to cling to - like a life jacket when they start to worry about the shadowy, maybe not real, threat of "identity theft". Even if it is a waste of money.

Statistics: Posted by LittleMaggieMae — Mon Aug 05, 2024 5:00 pm — Replies 17 — Views 1321

---