Purchasing Protection Against Identity Theft: What’s Good, What’s Not
Someone stole my brother’s identity ten years ago. In a week, he was hit with four $300 charges, and the bank wasn’t too happy with him. After a few days they finally sided with him and cancelled those charges from ravaging his credit and gave him new bank account information.
The really scary thing about this whole experience is that someone out there in the real world was walking around, claiming to be my brother, and because he or she had just enough personal and financial information to get by, no one could prove this stranger to be otherwise.
My brother thankfully resolved the trouble with the bank. His credit still gets poked by mysterious charges every now and then. My brother was incredibly lucky.
Losing your identity is one of the scariest things about being an interconnected, Internet based society. It’s awful to lose piles of money and end up spending hours of frustrating phone calls trying to halt payment on inane purchases you never even bought. Businesses have stepped up to help protect the frightened people, and they are taking advantage of the fear to score serious cash. For a fee, you too can join in on the madness.
No Tracking
Businesses offering protection against identity theft do not allow consumers to look at how effective their services are or whether they even help in the slightest.
Most companies center their efforts around checking your credit score regularly so no charges can slip past you without you being aware of its presence. There’s nothing complicated about reading your credit report — you could do it too, for much cheaper, I might add. So, not counting this, what exactly do these businesses do?
This is an impossible question, and one that plagues every customer who is blindly shoveling money away in the hope that somehow this will keep the identity theft demons away. With no way to track their activities, you have to accept their claims and assume you are safer by some means. Since protection against identity theft can solely be measured by whether or not an identity has been stolen, if your identity hasn’t been stolen, your service provider must have helped, yeah?
No. There are no guarantees.
Zero Features For Lots Of Money
Protection against identity theft can bear prices both high and low, though neither type has its services explained completely. Now, consider this: almost everything these companies offer to do for you, you can do even better, for less cash. Why let someone else do it when it’s just within your reach. If you have some spare time to devote to keeping tabs on your credit report, you can do just as well.
Protection against identity theft is crucial to maintaining your financial security, but throwing money at strangers to read your credit report just doesn’t make sense in the long run.
One of the fastest growing concerns in our security is preventing identity fraud, so take serious measures to be safe. Look for methods to browse safely, even when accessing important info, and check to see if there are solid products you can buy to help. Look to trusted websites to give you real answers to your protection against identity theft questions.
