In 2015 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled a lawsuit it initiated against identity theft protection company, Lifelock about which I reported to you in a Scam of the day earlier that year. In the lawsuit, Lifelock was accused of not living up to the terms of an earlier 2010 settlement with the FTC as well as 35 state attorneys general regarding charges that Lifelock used misleading and deceptive advertising as well as failed to adequately protect the security of the personal data of its customers including Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. According to the FTC, Lifelock violated the 2010 settlement by failing to maintain a comprehensive information security program to protect its users’ sensitive personal data, including credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and bank account numbers as well as by falsely advertising that it protected consumers’ sensitive data with the same high-level safeguards as financial institutions.
At the time of the settlement FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said, “The fact that consumers paid Lifelock for help in protecting their sensitive personal information makes the charges in this case particularly troubling.” This fine represents the largest fine ever collected by the FTC for the failure to live up to a previous agreement with the FTC. The funds collected from Lifelock were returned to eligible Lifelock customers in 2019, 2021 and in January of this year. Those distributions totaled more than 28.5 million dollars, however because there is still additional money available from the fine paid by Lifelock, the FTC is sending 2.3 million dollars of additional payments to 159,146 people who had previously received a payment. The payments will be sent by PayPal. For more information go to the middle of the opening page of Scamicide.com to the tab “FTC Refunds.”
TIPS
The charges of failing to protect customers’ personal information is very disturbing to Lifelock customers because any company holding such tremendous amounts of personal information would be a prime target of hackers and identity thieves. It is also important to remember that neither Lifelock nor any of the other identity theft protection services are able to truly protect you from identity theft. They merely help you take certain steps to reduce your chances of becoming a victim of identity theft and help you monitor your accounts to let you know sooner if you become a victim of identity theft.
In fact, none of the identity theft protection services assist you in putting a credit freeze on your credit report which may be the single best step you can take to protect yourself from identity theft. You can find instructions for putting a credit freeze on your credit reports here on Scamicide by putting the words “credit freeze” into the “Search this Website” section of the first page of Scamicide.com.
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