best credit monitoring service?

[Anonymous]

I lost my wallet on Sunday. It only had my ID and debit card which I immediatly froze. But I'm very worried about identy theft.

I've gotten strange calls today from from three different numbers, in three different area codes. The caller asks for someone else. I tried to call all three back and the call would not go through. hmm

I've used free-credit-report but I think i need something more.

Has anyone used life-lock? Any other recomendations?

[Anonymous]

If you are an American Express cardholder, they have a Credit Secure service that is pretty good. I finally canceled it because I was tired of paying the $15/month. Otherwise, I'd start with your bank and credit card companies - many of them offer credit monitoring.

[Anonymous]

credit monitoring does not help with ID theft. you might want something more than credit monitoring. ID theft could also mean someone taking your ID to secure a job, commit a crime, etc. It is not limited to credit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:credit monitoring does not help with ID theft. you might want something more than credit monitoring. ID theft could also mean someone taking your ID to secure a job, commit a crime, etc. It is not limited to credit.

Any recs for an id theft protection service?

[Anonymous]

Don't bother with credit monitoring. You NEED to put a credit freeze on your accounts at Trans Union, Experian, and Equifax. This will eliminate the possibility of identity theft. It will cost you $5.00 per bureau.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:credit monitoring does not help with ID theft. you might want something more than credit monitoring. ID theft could also mean someone taking your ID to secure a job, commit a crime, etc. It is not limited to credit.

Any recs for an id theft protection service?

Zander

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't bother with credit monitoring. You NEED to put a credit freeze on your accounts at Trans Union, Experian, and Equifax. This will eliminate the possibility of identity theft. It will cost you $5.00 per bureau.

My wallet (and identity) were stolen over ten years ago and I'm still dealing with crap that pops up. Credit monitoring has been absolutely essential for me to be informed in real time when anything happens related to my credit or my personal information (name, address, SSN, etc.). I use identityguard.com for something like $15 a month. Have had it for many years and I have no complaints. Its also nice to have access to all 3 of my credit reports whenever I want. The plan comes with many other benefits like online protection and a password vault if you want to use it.

Re: PP's suggestion to do a "credit freeze"...its not really a credit freeze (you still want to be able to access your own credit). Its a fraud alert that attaches to your credit. There is one level of alert that is more temporary than the other. It should not cost anything. If you establish an alert with one of the credit reporting agencies, they are required by law to inform the other two. So you only need to do it once. With this alert in place, nobody will be able to establish credit under your SSN because the creditor must first call the number on file to verify the person is who they say they are. Its kind of an annoying extra step when you are trying to access your own credit, but its worth the protection you get in return.

I assume you contacted all your banks where you have credit cards, etc. that were in your wallet to get new cards, etc issued and to make sure there are no suspicious charges. I would also file a police report. You can often file one online. You'll probably get zero follow up, but you might as well do it to keep a complete record of the theft and any fallout. Along the same lines, keep a folder that houses everything related to this incident so you can reference back to it if anything pops up down the line.

Sorry this happened to you, and hopefully there won't be significant fallout for you. But take the appropriate steps to protect yourself because it can be a giant pain in the ass to deal with if your information has fallen into the wrong hands. Also, there are good articles online about how to manage identity theft, but this is the basic stuff you need to do. Good luck.