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Britt Erica Tunick is an award winning financial journalist who has spent the past 17 years writing about virtually every aspect of finance. She has mastered the art of boiling down complicated financial topics for readers to understand. |
Most identity protection services provide little more than monitoring of consumers’ credit reports. Something you can do yourself for free. Are Identity Protection Services Worth Their Costs? By Britt Erica Tunick Last year Hollywood managed to turn identity theft into comedy, with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy spoofing a man physically hunting down the individual who had stolen his identity. In real life, however, identity theft is anything but funny and can be extremely costly for its victims – a fact that identity theft protection services continuously remind consumers of in their countless advertisements warning of the risks of not using their services. But are identity protection programs really worth the fees they charge? Identity protection service programs average between $10 and $15 per month and are now available from a variety of providers. From credit cards and banks, to companies specializing solely in identity protection services, consumers have a wide variety of choices for services offering to protect their identity from fraud. But when you get right down to it, most of these services provide little more than monitoring of consumers’ credit reports – something you can do yourself for free. Despite all the hype around the issue, the majority of “identity theft” cases that occur consist solely of stolen credit cards – whether physically stolen, or the increasingly common occurrence of card numbers being compromised online. While credit card theft is a serious matter and can potentially even impact the cardholder's future credit, in the majority of instances it is merely an annoyance and many credit card companies limit consumers' liability for charges they did not make. The more serious type of identity theft, which is far more difficult and costly to remedy, is the type where an individual’s social security number is compromised and someone opens new accounts or buys property in their name. Unfortunately, there is virtually nothing identity protection services can do to prevent the misuse of social security numbers and by the time such abuse is identified it is often a complicated process for consumers to clear their name and reclaim their identity. Regardless of the type of identity theft, early identification of the issue is the best way of stemming off significant damage. The greatest thing consumers can do to protect their identity and their credit is to monitor their overall finances – from credit cards and savings or checking account balances, to more comprehensive credit reports. Most banking institutions now offer automated alerts for suspicious card or account activity, or even just to let you know whenever a withdrawal has occurred from your account at an A.T.M., and some institutions have even begun introducing more advanced monitoring that allows consumers to request notifications of any transactions that exceed whatever pre-determined amount they have set as a flag. With such notifications readily available through e-mail, texts and even automated calls, monitoring your credit is easier than ever. Following are a few steps you can take to monitor your own credit and help protect your financial information from identity theft:
In the end, however, if your job or other demands on your time make monitoring your credit too difficult to handle on your own, you may decide that the costs of an identity theft service are worth it for you. |
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