According to an independent study conducted by the Gartner Group, "Identity scoring and monitoring is more effective than credit report monitoring to watch for potentially fraudulent activity. That's to be expected." Credit monitoring and identity monitoring are not the same. Both offer protection, however, identity monitoring, as we offer it, is uniquely designed to alert consumers to unauthorized attempts to use their identity in the earliest stages of an identity theft event. This proactive approach can help customers avoid the devastating effects of financial and non-financial misuse of their identity. Credit monitoring was developed to help consumers find errors in their credit report before applying for a loan. Studies show credit reports can have up to a 79% error rate. There are other differences between identity monitoring and credit monitoring.
The scope of credit monitoring is limited to financial activity reported to the credit bureaus. 22% of identity theft victims report that their identity was used in some "non-financial" way such as during the commission of a crime or filing of false tax returns. Identity monitoring addresses both financial and nonfinancial misuse of personal information. According to the Public Interest Research Group, 79% of credit reports contain some type of error. This accuracy raises the issue of credit monitoring as a reliable solution for identity theft prevention.
Checking your credit history prior to applying for a loan is helpful. But as a tool for protecting individuals from the costly, time-consuming perils associated with identity theft in a secure, accurate, user-friendly way, credit monitoring doesn't help much. It only lets you know about problems that have already happened. It's reactive. Identity monitoring can help you detect problems early and can give you a chance to "raise the shields" on your identity before you become a full victim. No monitoring can catch or help you stop everything, which is why identity restoration is the most important component of a comprehensive identity theft solution.
If your identity is stolen by a criminal, we will help you get your identity back to pre-theft status. We can either assist you in the resolution process by providing help and guidance or you can sign a limited-power-of-attorney with us and we will do everything we are allowed to do for you with little to no work required on your part. Either way, we will be there to help you until things are fixed.