Re: [privacy] ID Theft Tech: Credit Monitoring Services Ineffective?

["Hall, Rand" <rand () merrimack edu>]

> Beyond her shock, Mrs. Millett was angry. Five months earlier, the
Milletts
> had subscribed to a $79.99-a-year service from Equifax, a big financial
> data warehouse, that promised to monitor any access to her credit
records.
> But it never reported the credit activity that might have signaled that
> they were victims of identity theft.

Until legislators stand up to the financial industry, ID theft is going
to become the norm. Even with monitoring you can't stop it. In the
interim, rather than pay money for a monitoring service (which you can
largely do for free), many are turning to ID theft REPAIR insurance.
Anyone who's been through it knows it takes hundreds of hours to undo
the damage. Let someone else deal with the headache. One example is
http://www.zanderins.com/idtheft/idtheft.aspx

An obvious mitigation strategy is to not be dependent upon your FICO
score. If you pay cash (i.e. live within your means) you don't need to
pay much attention to your FICO score. You can take time cleaning up a
theft because your financial life isn't tied to it.


Cheers,
Rand


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