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The Courts Government Privacy Security News Technology

LifeLock Spokesperson's Stolen ID Inspires Lawsuits 217

Posted by timothy from the now-he-is-a-formless-protoplasmic-blob dept.
OrochimaruVoldemort writes "It seems as though LifeLock isn't as secure as Todd Davis makes it out. According to a LifeLock spokesman, his identity has been stolen. For two years, Davis has been daring hackers to steal his ID. Looks like he got what he wanted. CNN reports: 'Now, LifeLock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him.'"
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LifeLock Spokesperson's Stolen ID Inspires Lawsuits More

LifeLock Spokesperson's Stolen ID Inspires Lawsuits

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  • Isn't this old news? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ngth82 ( 1261748 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:35PM (#23509072)
    Isn't this old news? I thought I read about this months ago.

    • The news is... (Score:5, Informative)

      by dhj ( 110274 ) * on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:58PM (#23509400)
      The new news is that he is being sued. The old news is that identity thieves took his identity. The summary mentions the new part, but the title is poorly chosen. From TFA:

      - Atty David Paris is seeking class action lawsuit against founder Todd Davis in MD, NJ and WV for

      - Also being sued in AZ over the 1 million dollar "service guarantee" because it is being misrepresented and only covers "defects in lifelock's service" and not actual identity theft. which they are misrepresenting.

      - Experian is accusing LifeLock of deceiving customers about their breadth of service because all they do is put a fraud watch on your credit record every 90 days which is something anyone can do with the agencies for free themselves. The only thing this protects you from is credit fraud which where an initial credit check is performed -- and incidentally means if you actually want a change in credit, a cell phone, car, etc you have to contact the credit agency ahead of time so they will allow it.

      --David

      • Re:The news is... (Score:5, Funny)

        by frank_adrian314159 ( 469671 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:11PM (#23509616) Homepage
        The new news is that he is being sued. The old news is that identity thieves took his identity.

        Well, then, he doesn't have to worry, then, huh? Because they'll be suing the thieves! Right? Right?

      • I think this is just a pretty good example of how litigious our society is. The courts are more like a lottery, not a justice system.

        This guy has been BROADCASTING his Social Security Number for a long time and it was finally compromised. That seems pretty good to me. Maybe this wouldn't have happened if he wasn't BROADCASTING his Social Security Number nationally and daring identity thieves to do their worst. For a normal person, I think this service would probably do a good job so long as you aren't gi

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by orclevegam ( 940336 )
          The issue is that he became a victim of identity theft quite a while ago, and not just once but many times. He advertises that his company will protect you from identity theft, but it quite clearly doesn't. Because he himself was a victim, but he continued to advertise that he was being protected, he obviously knew his service didn't work, so promoting it as such is false advertising. There's also the issue that the company apparently is making claims about the services it provides that it doesn't actually

        • Re:The news is... still somewhat of an old story.. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ehrichweiss ( 706417 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:32PM (#23509928)
          His identity was stolen pretty quickly after he started advertising his SSN. I read elsewhere that his credit is sooo screwed up that the major agencies report his DOB as around 1943 or something and that there have been no less than 5 drivers licenses issued under his identity in various states. That doesn't sound like it remotely did what it was supposed to.

        • billionaires for tort reform! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by globaljustin ( 574257 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @03:52PM (#23511070) Journal

          good example of how litigious our society is

          I understand where you are coming from, and I agree, but torts are way down on the list of court reform issues that need to be addressed. Federal, State, and local Attorney's offices are the worst offender here, with large companies being a close second. Our criminal justice system is basically a plea bargain system now, it's so gamed and rigged by the DA's that any notion of a person accused of a crime having a 'fair day in court' is reserved only for the very rich who can afford $50,000+ lawyers. The RIAA, MPAA with their frivolous lawsuits are just as bad.

          The common thread here is that the courts have become another way to abuse everyday citizens in our country for political and financial gain, or even worse, for Public Relations.

          To the lawsuits mentioned in this story, I think the litigants in this lawsuit deserve their day in court. Part of me is glad his identity was stolen. Anyone who knows about how identity theft works (even at a cursory level), knows that the services this guy was pedaling were complete vaporware. His company was taking advantage of a climate of fear and he inadvisably believed his own hype. Granted, courts do get it very wrong sometimes, and we always need to make sure we provide ways to rectify those situations, but I do not think this case is in that territory.

          It is wrong to mislead people using their irrational fears and ignorance. Yes. It is wrong. Alot of people in our society seem to think that it's ok to do this...that's what I think needs reform!

        • Re:The news is... still somewhat of an old story.. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Zordak ( 123132 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @04:57PM (#23511912) Homepage Journal

          We seriously need tort reform in this country. That's the real story.

          This looks like a silly lawsuit to me, and there certainly are silly lawsuits. But "tort reform" as pushed by Bush and his cronies is not necessarily the answer. In Texas, thanks to tort reform, a physician could literally operate on you totally stoned and maim you for life, and the damages you can recover are so severely capped that it wouldn't be worth it to sue him (meaning it will be hard to get a lawyer to take the case if you can't pay hourly). That's not a bug. That's a feature.

          The intended effect of tort reform is to place a controlled value on the variables. Mr. Executive says, "If we do this evil thing [sell a dangerous vehicle or drug, for example], how much money will we make?" Bean counter says, "We will make $300 million and it will maim and/or kill a bunch of people." "How much will the law suits cost us?" Without tort reform, the bean counter has to answer, "I don't know. Juries are unpredictable." But with nice, tidy hard-capped damages, he can answer something like, "Our maximum exposure will be $150 million." "Great! Let's do it!" And we're off.

          And lest you think I'm just a bitter litigator who had his livelihood yanked out from under him, I'm not. I am a patent attorney. I don't do personal injury. I hate torts. I've just seen the statutes that were spoon fed to the Texas legislature by the insurance lobby. Tort reform is not your friend if you are not a tortfeasor.

      • Re:The news is... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:52PM (#23510256) Homepage
        Fraud watches aren't 100% security from credit fraud also. A fraud watch is actually voluntary. It means that the credit issuer should be careful and double-check whether a certain application is really from the person it claims to be from. However, some issuers ignore the fraud watches and will issue the credit anyway.

        The best protection is freezing your credit. That way, no one can check your credit or add new lines of credit. If you want to do anything involving your credit (open a new credit card, get a loan, get a background check), you would then need to unfreeze your credit and refreeze it when the activity was completed. Unfortunately, this costs $5 per action per agency per person. So if a husband and wife want to freeze their credit, it is $5 * 3 (credit agencies) * 2 (people), or $30. If they then want to unfreeze their credit, get a car load, and then refreeze their credit, it would cost $60.

        There was a bill awhile back that would have made this free, but the credit industry lobbyists got it killed. After all, if you freeze your credit then you can't sign up for a new credit card at the checkout line of a store to get 10% off your purchase. And that means that you are less likely to have lots of credit card debt interest to pay off. And that means less profits for them.

        As far as ID theft is concerned, they honestly don't care. If your identity gets stolen, it's your problem. You need to spend the time and money to prove to them that something went wrong. Any losses due to cards issued during ID theft are written off (or sent to a collection agency to hassle the ID theft victim and further negatively impact their credit rating).

        Todd Davis is just lucky that he wasn't a victim of Criminal Identity Theft [blogspot.com].
      • Actually LifeLock does more that just file Fraud Alerts on your behalf. The also get your information removed from marketing mailing lists, telemarketing lists and now they are attempting to check known sources of stolen identity information to see if your info has been stolen.

        LifeLock only works if those granting credit actually check with the credit bureaus. If a loan shark or other such lender just loans someone money on a signature note with out any verification then anyone can still target your id

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by fishbowl ( 7759 )

        >- Also being sued in AZ over the 1 million dollar "service guarantee" because it is being misrepresented and only
        >covers "defects in lifelock's service" and not actual identity theft. which they are misrepresenting.

        That's interesting because Arizona has a Doctrine of Reasonable Expectations that permits parol evidence even in cases where a contract has a merger clause that would otherwise exclude parol evidence.

        That means, if a salesperson said something other than what was stated in the contract, th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by delong ( 125205 )
        The only thing this protects you from is credit fraud which where an initial credit check is performed -- and incidentally means if you actually want a change in credit, a cell phone, car, etc you have to contact the credit agency ahead of time so they will allow it

        This is not true. A fraud watch, as the spokesman for the company obviously discovered to his detriment, does nothing to prevent a creditor from giving credit. A creditor does not even have to call you to verify with a fraud alert. Only a cred
  • They stopped running all those adds on TV.

  • TWO FREAKING YEARS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gotung ( 571984 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:38PM (#23509114)
    The guy has been throwing out his social security number (often in television advertisements) for 2 whole years and only once did anybody end up getting any money out of it.

    And that person got it from a payday check cashing place at that.

    Not exactly a reputable type of business in general.

    I'd say his service works pretty well based upon that track record.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) *
      Uh, yeah, but there are a LOT of payday check cashing places.

      • not for long. They'll probably all be shut down in the next few years.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Already shut down in Ohio.

    • Um, actually... (Score:5, Informative)

      by RandoX ( 828285 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:44PM (#23509236)
      According to The Consumerist [consumerist.com], "...the CEO's personal information is currently being misused by at least 20 different identity thieves"
      • And how bloody terrible is the system then? I mean, this guy, out in the open said, "Steal my identity. Here is my social security number ...". THEN it got stolen. Not only did it get stolen, but the publicity of it being stolen is pretty encompassing. AND THEY STILL can't stop people from using it. Seriously... it is free money. And apparently there is NOTHING you can do to stop people from taking it. You can slow them down, possibly... but if they want it, you can't stop them. It is almost like the system

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by orclevegam ( 940336 )
      It says it prevents identity theft, not that it prevents people from obtaining loans in your name. The articles all mention that a lot of people (at least 20, but possible many more) have obtained drivers licenses using his SSN, and many more attempted to but were unsuccessful. Further there service won't protect you from someone using your identity to obtain a job, or several other types of identity theft that don't directly impact your credit report. There's also the fact that they're charging for a servi

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Uncle Focker ( 1277658 )
        Exactly. All this company is doing is periodic credit report checks and to put a credit lock on the customers credit information. All of this the consumer can do on their own for a fraction of the cost and will be just as secure. But then again companies like LifeLock would rather you not know about these options since you no longer line their pockets.
        • Agreed! And furthermore, I have it on good authority that businesses claiming to be "taxi services" will charge consumers for transportation to a destination, when they could simply walk there for a fraction of the cost and still arrive!
      • I am not a subscriber of lifelock, so I don't know for certain, but I don't think that people are paying for the credit alerts. The real service being provided is that they get to be the ones making all the phone calls getting the stuff taken care of after someone has stolen the identity.

        Most people that I know that have gotten their identities stolen weren't complaining about the money loss, or the wrecked credit. They complain about the massive loss of time (months, and sometimes years) that it takes to

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by orclevegam ( 940336 )
          The commercials imply that they'd be the ones making the calls for you, but if I'm reading the details of the lawsuit correctly that's not the case and is part of what they're being sued over. Apparently they only cover you if there's a flaw in their service, which since it's really just a front for the credit reporting agencies own service doesn't seem very likely. Apparently the fine print on this thing deviates drastically from the spoken guarantee of "If you're identity is stolen we'll reimburse you wit
    • Which highlights a huge hole in their service. Just imagine how many of their clients could have already been subjected to such a misuse of their personal information and they would have no idea about it because as the article says, they don't use one of the 3 credit reporting agencies when giving out the loan. You can just save yourself the money and just get credit lock from each of the credit reporting agencies and save yourself the monthly bill (which is also this service ends up being in the first pl

    • Re:TWO FREAKING YEARS (Score:5, Informative)

      by XorNand ( 517466 ) * on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:11PM (#23509622)
      This "service" is simply placing a fraud alert on your credit report. When a creditor pulls your report, they see this alert which means they ought to do a bit more manual verification of your ID before granting credit. Most creditors will go the extra mile to win the business, but some of them will just throw the credit app in the trash. The bureaus have been bitching left and right about Lifelock, because they're gaming the system. A FA is only supposed to be used if a credit report (CR) is suspected of containing fraudulent information. Anyhow... the point is, you can call a credit bureau (Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion) and place a FA on your file for free. You don't even have to call them all, a FA will in short time propagate to all three.

      (Note: a FA is different from "freezing" your CR, which prevents it from even being pulled at all by potential creditors. A freeze is a one-time fee ($10 I think) and is an even better protection against ID theft than a perpetual FA. The downside is you have to pay that $10 per bureau and it can be a pain in the ass if you ever to legitimately apply for credit.)
    • Not exactly a reputable type of business in general.

      They are actually illegal in many states because it's considered loan sharking.

    • You must have missed where he also has had his credit report poisoned so badly that they now report his DOB around 1943 or so and that there are no less than 5 drivers licenses in his name in various states of the country. I would not call that a success in any regard.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by db32 ( 862117 )
      His "service" is billing you for something you can do for free. On top of that the fact that he has been all over TV, radio, and the internet doing this crap makes him considerably more recognizable than the average person off the street. You don't usually want to steal the identity of someone who will be recognized.

  • Duh. Just Duh. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Frosty-B-Bad ( 259317 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:41PM (#23509164) Homepage
    who really thinks some 3rd company can block all access to your information? Even if they had access to your credit file, its all in the past, so it would take a month to figure it out, while your credit score gets lowered, then all this company could do is pay to fix/remove it, more like insurance than any sort of blocking; then the "big 3" credit mongrels will sort out the problem after said company contacts them, and after I'm sure you have to call/fax them all this info, signed in triplicate, so in the end you just gave LifeLock money for a false feeling of security, because they have no higher ability to repair your credit file than another one has to destroy it. think about it people. Really?
    • What I'm assuming they do, is just put a credit freeze on your credit report so no new lines of credit can be opened (which is a good idea to do yourself if you don't plan on applying for loans or credit cards any time soon).

      But the sleazier places that don't check credit reports will still give you credit if it's a valid SSN. And they are easier to litigate against since they didn't check your credit report, and obviously didn't verify a (real) government-issued photo ID.

  • Let's keep this in perspective... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jhon ( 241832 ) * on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:41PM (#23509166) Homepage Journal

    Davis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity, and one succeeded: a guy in Texas who duped an online payday loan operation last year into giving him $500 using Davis' Social Security number.
    One out of 87 -- and that guy only succedded in getting $500.

    Davis learned about the fraud in Texas when the payday-loan outfit called to collect on the loan, he said. He didn't get an alert beforehand because the company didn't go through one of the three major credit bureaus before approving the transaction.
    Ok... so it's not perfect -- but it sounds like the service would stop major ID theft attempts...

    • One out of 87 -- and that guy only succedded in getting $500.

      That just means that 87 potential ID thieves that were either a) extraordinarily stupid or b) extraordinarily arrogant made detectable attempts to use his identity.

      Really, shouldn't catching people attempting to use that SSN be on about the same level as catching DUI offenders in front of liquor stores?
    • He didn't get an alert beforehand because the company didn't go through one of the three major credit bureaus before approving the transaction.

      It's okay. Even if you've explicitly requested the alert service from the three major credit bureaus, they usually don't bother with notifying you anyways.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by db32 ( 862117 )
      One out of AT LEAST 87.

      Only learned about it when the payday-loan outfit caleld to collect on the loan.

      So...because they know of 87 that means it only happened 87 times? Because they caught one when he got a phone call about collections that was the only one? This also doesn't account for a tremendous variety of things that you can use someone's identity for that won't generate credit checks.

  • "he knew it wouldn't"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by webrunner ( 108849 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:41PM (#23509168) Homepage Journal

    claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him.


    Isn't the fact that he got his identity stolen due to use of the system more or less hard proof that he didn't know it wouldn't work?
  • So he is being sued because he is the victim of identity theft? I could understand suing a company for defective service if some harm befell you from their service, but not if some harm befell someone ELSE for their service. I understand "deceptive advertising", but still, I think the lawsuit merit seems flimsy. (IANALBTW)
    • The fact that he was also a victim of identity theft while a client of his own company is being cited as evidence that his deception was willful.

  • Identity? (Score:4, Funny)

    by amccaf1 ( 813772 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:43PM (#23509204)

    Now, LifeLock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis[...]
    Gee, let's hope they sue the right guy... They might accidentally sue the guy who stole his identity!

  • "Identify theft" needs a new name (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sakdoctor ( 1087155 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:44PM (#23509238) Homepage
    ...cause seriously, it's bullshit. I mean this idea that my "identity" can be stolen. What this seems to be about to be is accountability. If a bank gives out money because someone duped them into believing that they were me, then the buck should stop with them. Their fuck up, their loss in a sane world.

    • Re:"Identify theft" needs a new name (Score:4, Interesting)

      by orclevegam ( 940336 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:09PM (#23509574) Journal
      And you can go to court and prove you're not responsible, but the monetary damages aren't the real problem. The problem arises because of the centralized credit agencies that score your "risk" for various banks and lenders. It doesn't matter if you never have to pay the money if your credit score is so abysmal you can no longer take out a loan for a new car or house. Not to mention there's the legal fees of proving you didn't do it even if it's fairly trivial to do.
    • Ok, so how do you prove to your bank it was you? Should every company require DNA samples? That wouldn't even work... so.. how do you prove someone is who they say they are. You act as if all this paperwork that everyone requires means something.

      My sister's brother was offically dead since birth. The doctor wanted to go on vacation, and filled out both the birth and death certificates, leaving the nurse to decide which one to enter a time on and file. Guess which one the nurse filed? It wasn't until h

    • If a bank gives out money because someone duped them into believing that they were me, then the buck should stop with them. Their fuck up, their loss in a sane world.

      Unfortunately, the banks have lobbied for an insane World where they're not held accountable.

      And this case illustrates that even if you do the most drastic thing to protect yourself, freeze your credit (monitoring services are NOT as good), you can still get bit in the ass from folks who skip the credit checks at the bureaus.

      The part I really hate is that even after you get your identity "theft" cleared up you, the victim, will have to keep the paper work proving your innocence for the rest of your life.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dave562 ( 969951 )
        All that because banks, retailers, auto dealerships, etc... want to make it easy for you, the consumer, to go into debt to buy their shit. There is no other reason.

        And to take it one step further... our entire economy is based on debt. If the bank loans you $1000, they can now use that loan of $1000 as an "asset" and loan that asset out to someone else. Thanks to fractional reserve banking, they can actually loan out the $1000 that they loaned to you out many times over.

        If you really want to trip out, re

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      Their fuck up, their loss in a sane world.

      We don't live in a sane world, we live in a corporate-funded asylum. Hints:

      -as a bumper stiker I saw today says, they pass a "PATRIOT act - protecting your rights by taking them away"

      giving money to both major candidates in a political race isn't a bribe

      an oil company in Britain can increase its profits by having its employees going on strike

      a group of people, half of whom attempt suicide, call themselves "gay"

      Companies sue dead people (RIAA labels)

      Companies sue the

  • In other news ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wsanders ( 114993 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:44PM (#23509240) Homepage
    .. I drove my car into a tree at 70 MPH and I got hurt. Fuckers!

    Although you do have to be a bit of chump to pay $10 per month to lock your credit, the value is that the company will do all the work if your identity does get stolen. So unless the company is incompetent at that, I declare these people to be a bunch of whiners, with some ambulance chasing douchebag lawyer probably promising them great riches if they win.
    • ...to use your example, it would be as if the car company had explicitly laid down hard guarantees that you could ram the car into as many trees as you liked at 70 mph and you would never be hurt, AFTER their own crash-tests had demonstrated that getting hurt was not only possible but very very likely.

      Their claim, after all, is not that they were hurt, but that the company selling the product (allegedly) falsified information, concealed evidence of that falsification, and then sold products based on that

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by wsanders ( 114993 )
        Except the lifelock guarantee says nothing of the sort. Just like the auto companies advertise only that their cars have safety features, not that they will protect me under all circumstances. Their guarantee even foresees that customer's identities will be stolen.

        http://lifelock.com/lifelock-for-people/how-we-do-it/how-does-the-guarantee-work [lifelock.com]:

        "Our Total Service Guarantee is simple. In the unfortunate event your identity is misused while you are a LifeLock member, we will reimburse direct expenses you incur

  • Great secuity (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:44PM (#23509242)
    1) Goto: https://secure.lifelock.com/enrollmentform.aspx [lifelock.com] 2) Enter ' or 1=1 or ' quotes included as the promo code. 3) ??? 4) Profit

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nawcom ( 941663 )

      1) Goto: https://secure.lifelock.com/enrollmentform.aspx [lifelock.com] 2) Enter ' or 1=1 or ' quotes included as the promo code. 3) ??? 4) Profit
      heh anyone actually done this? used this trick for free service? it says it will charge you $0 annually after all..

    • Re:Great secuity (Score:4, Informative)

      by ZiakII ( 829432 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:02PM (#23509472)
      interesting enough also the word test works

  • I DARE you crackers! Double dog dare you! (Score:5, Funny)

    by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @01:49PM (#23509292) Journal
    For two years, Davis has been daring hackers to steal his ID.

    Child's play. I bet you dumbsassses aren't good enough to shuttle $5,000,000 into my bank account, losers! I dare you! I double dog dare you!
  • IIRC the service is not supposed to be an iron clad prevention of ID theft, but rather part prevention and part insurance should you become a 'victim' of ID theft. Meaning that you will have your credit ID repaired at no charge up to $1000K.

    If that's the case, these people have no grounds for a lawsuit. (IMO, IANAL)

  • protection without paying money (Score:4, Informative)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:02PM (#23509474) Homepage

    There are some pretty straightforward things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft, without paying any money.

    You can opt out of getting unsolicited credit card offers at optoutprescreen.com [optoutprescreen.com]. (Here [ftc.gov] is a link to them from an FTC web page so you can tell they're legit.)

    You can also make a habit of getting an annual free credit report from annualcreditreport.com. [annualcreditreport.com] This can help you to detect if something goofy is going on. (Link from FTC [ftc.gov]. It's run by the credit reporting companies, and as you go through the process, they'll try hard to sell you on getting non-free services as well. You have to watch carefully, and not accept the defaults.)

    IIRC there is also a process for locking your credit reports completely, but it costs money unless you can demonstrate that you've already been a victim of fraud.

    • Here's a shorter and easier-to-remember link that also includes warnings about scam sites:

      http://www.ftc.gov/freereports [ftc.gov]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stickyc ( 38756 )
      You can also make a habit of getting an annual free credit report from annualcreditreport.com. [annualcreditreport.com] This can help you to detect if something goofy is going on.

      I wholeheartedly second this with the caveat to read everything very carefully when signing up for a free credit report. These companies all make money off of up-selling you to paid ongoing credit monitoring services and they make every possible effort to sign you up for such services as part of the free report process (and likew

  • Experian Deception with FreeCreditReport.com (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ron Bennett ( 14590 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @02:32PM (#23509922) Homepage
    Ironic to read that Experian is complaining about LifeLock's practices when, in my view, Experian itself engages in deception far worse with their costly FreeCreditReport.com website that many people confuse with the truly free AnnualCreditReport.com.

    Ron

  • the nerve (Score:2, Funny)

    by petershank ( 463008 )

    Paris noted that LifeLock charges $10 a month to set fraud alerts with credit bureaus, even though consumers can do it themselves for free.
    Yeah, that's pretty damning. Similarly, I have it on good information that certain businesses calling themselves "taxi services" charge a few dollars per trip to convey people from one location to another, even though consumers can walk for free.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      Similarly, I have it on good information that certain businesses calling themselves "taxi services" charge a few dollars per trip to convey people from one location to another, even though consumers can walk for free.

      Great, and when you hire one of these so called "taxi services" and they show up with a rickshaw and you get there at walking speed, are you going to feel cheated? After all, they never guaranteed a specific speed, and they got you there at exactly the same time as if you'd walked yourself,

  • HA!!! Goes to show (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kcredden ( 1007529 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @03:09PM (#23510530) Homepage
    As soon as I started hearing this, I thought this is a load of...well you know. I knew very well, there is no way possible that you can make an unhackable Internet connected computer system, at least not without HUGE costs (government maybe?) Especially because the way these companies do it. I doubt there was any encryption, much less firewalling, and other security. Just goes to show, P.T. was right on the money here. Best way to not be ID ripped off? Don't store your ID online, period. No cracker can get in, if it's not connected to the net. - Kc

  • If you ever even considered using LifeLock... (Score:5, Informative)

    by DiscipleN2k ( 914143 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @03:16PM (#23510614)
    Step 1: Call Experian (1-888-397-3742) and have them put a fraud alert on your file. They'll pass it on to the other 2 credit bureaus (Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 & TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289).

    Step 2: Repeat step 1 every 90 days.

    Step 3: Save $120 a year by doing everything LifeLock does all by yourself.

    (I know, I missed the obvious, "Step 3: Profit!" joke)

  • Obligatory... (Score:3, Funny)

    by slashname3 ( 739398 ) on Thursday May 22, 2008 @07:23PM (#23513032)
    HA HA!

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