CreditLock.com

As Identity Theft continues to haunt consumers throughout the world, several Identity Theft Protection companies are offering services to defend against such threat. Choosing the right service or company to defend against Identity Theft is not always an easy task. Consumers should base their decision on five guiding principles: A- Disclosure B- Trust C- Value- D- Variety and E- Effectiveness.

These five guiding principles are emphasized today in light of a recent article by Ray Stern, published on may 31, 2007 by the Phoenix New Times, under the title: "What Happened in Vegas... Clients nationwide are entrusting private information to a Tempe anti-identity-theft firm that's based on a bluff." The article discussed in depth such firm, called Lifelock, and the background of its founder Robert J. Maynard Jr. We will refrain from elaborating on the article as readers are welcome to draw their own conclusions by reading such article by clicking on the provided title. However, for the sake of the tens of thousands of customers of Lifelock, we do hope that when the facts are sorted out, that such customers find that their trust was well placed.

Disclosure is a very important guiding principle in selecting an Identity Theft protection service. Such disclosure must be evaluated on two fronts: 1- Disclosure of information required from the customer 2- Disclosure by the provider of service. If a customer is required to provide sensitive information to an Identity Theft protection company, such as social security number, date of birth, power of attorney or other, then a customer must be able to trust 100% that such information will not be mishandled (neither accidentally nor intentionally). Furthermore, it is also important for the provider of service to  make proper disclosures to the customer, regardless whether such disclosures are legally required or not. It is morally correct for the company to disclose to the customer if he is entitled to such service, or part of the service, for free, and to explain exactly where the value proposition is for the premium service. For example, consumers are entitled to place Fraud Alerts for free. If a company offers to place such alerts on your behalf, and to renew them automatically for you every three months for $100 per year, then it is morally correct for the company to let you know that you are entitled to place such alerts yourself for free.

Trust
The importance of Trust is relative to the disclosure required from the customer. Obviously, Trust is required even if there is absolutely no information whatsoever required to be disclosed by the consumer. However, Trust gains an even bigger role as a consumer is required to disclose sensitive personal information. All personal information is important. However, some personal information is even more important than other. We will group personal information in four major groups: 1- regular personal information: name, email, address 2- sensitive personal information: credit card numbers, expiration dates, date of birth, mother name, children names, etc... 3- very sensitive personal information: social security number, credit card 4 digit security code, bank account numbers, driver's license number, medical records, passport number, etc... 4- extremely sensitive personal information: PIN codes, banking transaction details, power of attorney documents, fingerprint, DNA, etc...