We’ve all seen the ads; LifeLock founder Todd Davis flaunting his social security number on the side of a truck, daring hackers and thieves to try and steak his identity. It seems someone took him up on the challenge and succeeded, successfully stealing his identity in spite of his own company’s flashy guarantee of identity security.

The identity thief who succeeded where 86 other would be thieves failed before him was smart enough to approach a payday loan company that was relatively “off the grid” in Texas. That meant the company had somehow managed not to see the ubiquitous commercials on and offline for the LifeLock service.

Todd Davis is currently being sued by users of the LifeLock service in several states, including West Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. The users are unhappy with the lack of protection afforded by the LifeLock service.

The interesting thing about the LifeLock service is that it charges gullible customers to do things to protect them that they can do themselves for free. Instead of letting LifeLock set fraud alerts and take steps with the credit bureaus to protect your identity, take a minute and learn how to do it yourself – the three big credit bureaus even have an online form just for that purpose you can use.

In the end this drives home the knowledge that your power to protect yourself is far greater than any so-called LifeLock service you can buy. A little consumer credit education goes a long way, and all of the steps you can take to protect yourself the most are completely free.

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Entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 5:15 am under Uncategorized.

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