TrustedID Review

I recently decided to complete and document my TrustedID review as I continue to review diverse identity protection services for my readers. TrustedID is one of the leading service brands in the vast identity protection industry which provides automated identity monitoring services. I have been mostly reviewing and writing about identity monitoring services such as LifeLock and Identity Guard because these types of ID theft services dominate the identity protection marketplace and also they allow consumers to protect their identities more efficiently through automation.

It is very important to me that readers understand the meaning of “automation” in the context of identity monitoring. An identity monitoring service can track many components of our identity such as our social security number or credit card, however, when an identity monitoring service notifies a person regarding a transaction, the person must diligently follow up. When a person’s identity component such as a social security number is tracked through a computer program which detects any credit transaction involving the person’s social security number, the person is immediately and “automatically” notified by email, text or phone call regarding the detected transaction. Now, the person is responsible for following up to make sure the transaction detected by the computer program is a legitimate transaction because the computer can’t know whether the transaction is a legitimate one approved by the rightful owner of the identity or a fraudulent one. Therefore, the word “automation” relates to automatic detection and notification of ALL transactions involving the particular identity component being tracked and not detection of just the fraudulent transactions. I hope you get the point because this information is very important to determine our reliance level on identity monitoring services.

Registration

Now back to my TrustedID review, I registered for their services online in July 2010 and provided the usual information initially required by most identity protection services during the online registration process. Such information includes full name, home address, date of birth, and social security number which I provided along with a preferred credit card number to pay for my service.

Pricing

TrustedID service prices appear more reasonable to me when compared to other services. The annual service plan is priced even less when compared to the monthly plan which is the one I selected to test the service even further and update this TrustedID review at a future time.

Benefits

Other than monitoring a social security number to detect unauthorized transactions, I also discovered during my TrustedID review that we can use the TrustedID system to track our credit cards, bank accounts and health insurance accounts. When we first register for the TrustedID service, our social security number is obtained and tracked automatically. However, to track our credit cards as well as bank and health insurance accounts, we must log into the account and enter our personal information in order to allow the system to track the information.

Improvements Needed

My initial reaction during the TrustedID review and after I signed up for the service and accessed my online account was that the system did not automatically place fraud alerts on my credit reports and I had to log into my account and initiate the process which is pretty simple.

Second, I received my credit report from only one of the three credit reporting agencies. Normally, I have received credit reports from all three credit bureaus when I have signed up for other services. Although, credit reports from all three bureaus provide the same type of information, they sometimes differ in their completeness and accuracy of reported credit information.

Also, if you remember, I mentioned in this TrustedID review that I provided my credit card number to sign up for the service during the registration process, my question is why is the system not automatically tracking the credit card number I used to register just like the social security number I provided for tracking purposes? Why should I reenter the credit card information again? I think this would be an added service value in the automated identity monitoring service.

Conclusion

Overall, it appears that when compared with other services in the market, TrustedID is a reasonable service with a great price which can be a good complement to the Identity Diet program. Identity Diet empowers people to protect their identities through awareness and education while TrustedID automates some aspects of a person’s identity protection efforts. Identity monitoring services must not be considered a full replacement for a person’s identity protection efforts but rather a component of a person’s overall identity protection strategy.

Learn about Identity Diet after reading the TrustedID review.