That $40 credit monitoring subscription that saved me from identity theft

I signed up for a credit monitoring service like 6 months ago mostly just for peace of mind, $40 a month. Last week I got an alert that someone tried opening a cell phone account in my name in Ohio. I caught it within 2 hours and froze my credit with all three bureaus. Has anyone else had a monitoring service actually pay off like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamie94010d ago

$40 a month for 6 months is $240 you basically threw away for something that might have never happened anyway... most of those services just spam you with alerts for stuff that isn't even fraud.

karenh5610d ago

$240 is a lot cheaper than dealing with someone stealing your identity though.

rubyk269d ago

My cousin Deb paid $300 for that LifeLock service back in 2018 and it was the biggest waste of money. She got like 47 alerts in 3 months and every single one was a false alarm, just spam about her credit score going up a few points. Then last year her actual identity got stolen through a data breach at her doctor's office and the service did NOTHING to stop it. She spent hours on the phone with them and they basically said "that's not what we cover." I'd rather just freeze my credit for free and keep an eye on my own accounts than throw cash at those companies.