Lifelock (kind of) worked... :)
 

Several years ago I got a lifelock account when I rented the house I moved out of to (what turned out to be) some deadbeats. As things went south, knowing they were probably still getting some of my mail, and knowing they were deadbeats, I got lifelock (before all the lifelock stuff went down)

If nothing else, it was a way for me to toss money somewhere to supposedly get a "good night's sleep."


Well... Lo and behold, I had forgotten I had even signed up for it, and on Monday a.m., I was getting notifications of someone applying for credit cards with my name and SSC.

In general, I really hate Mondays. I woke up thinking about the thread "applying for stress leave.. or something" I was starting with that arm crushing stress on my left shoulder already just walking in the door. Then the lifelock alert. As identity theft was thrown in, my hatred of that Monday grew exponentially.

Anyway... I hated Monday....

So, here's what happened, I got the notification someone was up to no good. Lifelock informed me of the credit company who had gotten the request. I called there and inquired. The credit person suggested I call law enforcement immediately.

Great Monday!

Within several hours, I had frozen all credit reporting agencies and had fraud alerts on all. I also contacted all banks and etc about the issue.

Today... Lifelock called to start the process of reporting the issue to the original agency that received the credit request...


So basically, I am happy lifelock notified me, but I am confused why it took them two days to start the process of shutting down the potentially fraudulent account.

My paranoid brain even thinks lifelock did it to make themselves relevant!


What I have learned- you can freeze your credit reporting score. Mine will remain frozen. I hate all that s#$ anyway. If (and only if) I "need" credit I can reactivate them when needed to get approval.


So anyway, what are some good tips? I am almost embarrassed to say I had Lifelock at all, but it kind of saved my ass. I could have done all that stuff myself so to speak, just as we can all change our motor oil... yet you get to a point where you don't necessarily want to, and opt to have someone else do it for you..

Also, I changed all my passwords (well except for pp), and lo and behold, my ebay account / passwords come up in Russian yesterday. WTF?
(yes, I'm looking for suggestions there too... :) )

What say ye mighty braintrust?

I've had mine frozen at all three agencies for at least 15 years now, and we've discussed it here a few times ;). Just do it...

I figured this has been discussed here a 1000 times before- I do like the idea it is now free. I will try not to get mad at the experian/equifax/transunion axis of evil!!!

I froze mine on all four credit reporting agencies when the last debacle happened. I almost never need to do anything related to credit things at this point in my life & basically forgot about it. I had to change to the new Costco card some time ago and was mystified why they couldn't get an approval through the agency they were running it through. Finally I remembered all of them were frozen, so I unfroze the one they were running it through for a week & it went through fine.

It took a letter and ten bucks to each back in the day....still worth it. Now that it's so easy...I don't know how Lifelock stays afloat....err...yes, yes, I do....suckers ;).

Never froze mine and fortunately no issues. Always got cold feet when starting the process on line. Of course, they need all your info (ss#, dob, address, etc)...all the things a scammer longs for. Part way through, chickened out.

Is there a reliable way to do it without risking the exact opposite of your intentions?

You could probably still send in a request by mail, but I'd just do it online on each site these days. Go to each of the three agencies web sites directly, not via a link, so you know it's legit. Then give 'em what they already have ;) ....all that info (likely for verification...I dunno).

Or you can just PM me your info and bank routing/acct info and I'll take care of it ;)

Did lifelock just notify you and make you do all the work or did they actually fix it for you like the ads say?
It sure sounds like you did most of the fixing.

I ask because Credit karma monitors my credit and will notify me for free.

You can actually freeze your credit for free now with all three agencies. (Used to be fee-based but after the dang Equifax scandal they all offered it for free.). If you're not looking to apply for new credit cards or some other loan in the next 3 years, it's a good move.

The lifelock thing notified me (which I would have not known had they not).

The credit reporting agencies will do that for you (for a price).

Once I found out, I got on the horn and did everything myself. From what I saw yesterday, lifelock would have done that for/with me as well, but it was a two day lag from when the incident occurred.

Of course, none of this would have happened had the reports been locked to begin with.
I should have been spending more time reading ppot articles on locking credit, as opposed to "show me your butt" threads.

After this, I will probably just keep everything locked and get reports on activity directly from the reporting agencies.

Lifelock does very little over things you could do, and charge $$ per month... If you freeze your credit on the big 3 agencies, you've done90% of lifelock's work already...

+1

I've been using ID Guard for years which is similar, but you also get quarterly 3-bureau credit reports/FICO scores. That's really the only reason I keep it.