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Review: ProtectMyID from Experian helps guard against identity theft |
December 22, 2012
Identity theft is scary business, for sure. But it's a threat that seems a whole lot less likely once you sign up for ProtectMyID, an online identity theft protection service that comes from Experian, a trusted credit-reporting company. ProtectMyID is not cheap though, as it costs $16 per month for regular monitoring.
To sign up for ProtectMyID.com, you need to provide some basic information about yourself, including your address and social security number. It then begins protecting your identity by monitoring the use of your social security number, certain credit accounts, and address. All of the information you need to get started is presented in ProtectMyID's neatly-organized dashboard, which easy enough to browse, but slightly text-heavy.
ProtectMyID offers three different "Surveillance Alerts": Internet Scan, Change of Address Alerts, and Credit Alerts. The Internet Scan feature monitors what Experian calls "a vast number of online sources" where compromised credit and debit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and other personal data is found, traded or sold. To activate this protection, you need to manually add the cards you'd like protected, and Experian limits you to three. If you have more cards than that, you're out of luck, unfortunately.
ProtectMyID features a good-looking layout that's easy to understand.
The Credit Alerts feature monitors your credit report (from all three leading reporting bureaus) for what it calls "leading indicators of identity theft," which include new loans and accounts. The Change of Address alerts, meanwhile, monitors address changes that affect your credit accounts. If any alerts are raised, ProtectMyID will alert you via text message or email. Both of these are more comprehensive than the Internet Scan feature.
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Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2022999/review-protectmyid-from-experian-helps-guard-against-identity-theft.html
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