Hello Readers,
We get a lot of inquiries about LifeLock and other similar services, wherein you pay the company a monthly fee to protect your credit report. Guess what? You could do this all yourself if you followed the advice on my website or on the Federal Trade Commission website, www.ftc.gov. For the most part, LifeLock simply places security alerts or security freezes for you, which is something you can and should do yourself anyway. It is not a service you need to purchase. It is the financial equivalent of paying a lot of money to have someone put gas in your car when you can do it yourself for less.
Evidently the Federal Trade Commission and several states Attorneys General agree with me. Today LifeLock (What a Crock!) paid out $12 million to settle fraudulent advertising claims. Here’s the story.
LifeLock Will Pay $12 Million to Settle Charges by the FTC and 35 States That Identity Theft Prevention and Data Security Claims Were False
LifeLock, Inc. has agreed to pay $11 million to the Federal Trade Commission and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general to settle charges that the company used false claims to promote its identity theft protection services, which it widely advertised by displaying the CEO’s Social Security number on the side of a truck.
In one of the largest FTC-state coordinated settlements on record, LifeLock and its principals will be barred from making deceptive claims and required to take more stringent measures to safeguard the personal information they collect from customers.