Identity-Theft Protection: What Services Can You Trust?
How Much Identity Protection Do You Get for Your Money?
None of the six sevices we tested qualifies as full-featured. Here's how they ranked, based on offerings and performance.
| Company/Service, in order of rating | Rating | Credit alerts and online credit reports | Public record reports | Fraud alert | Online dashboard | Chat room scans | Identity theft insurance | Security software | Comments |
| Identity Guard "Total Protection" $17/month or $170/year | Good | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Full service handles both monitoring and freezes, but interface invites signing up for things you already have. |
| Debix Identity Protection Network $99/year | Fair | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Service offers real-time identity verification via phone, though not all creditors take advantage of this. |
| Suze Orman's Identity Theft Kit $40 kit | Fair | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Software-based kit uses TrustedId for alerts; claims to protect against theft of health insurance records, too. |
| TrustedID "Identity Freeze" $13/month or $110/year | Fair | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | This is the only service to manage both credit freezes and fraud alerts. Performed as advertised in our tests. |
| LifeLock
$10/month or $110/year | Poor | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | The most limited of the services tested lacks online dashboard; fraud alert wasn't set until we followed up. |
| TrueCredit by TransUnion "3 in 1 Monitoring" $15/month | Poor | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Service is marred by obnoxious marketing tactics; in our test it failed to issue alerts in two instances. |
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