10-second breakdown:
With a highly customizable experience to fit your demands and excellent customer support both before and after an emergency, Equifax has an award-winning recipe with their ID Patrol identity theft protection.
The good:
Fraud happens at all times of the day and night and Equifax has reps ready to take your call 24/7. If you notice something is not right, or get an alert at an odd hour; you can alert the service and they’ll get to work before things get too out of hand.
All alert parameters can be set by you. If you want to be notified only when there is a large transaction made with your accounts, then set the amount and it will let you know. On the flip side, if you want more alerts to see where your money is going; alerts can be more frequent.
You are working directly with a credit bureau, so if you’re account is hacked they’ll alert the credit score keepers faster than other services.
The bad:
There is no medical identification protection which is a growing vulnerability for fraud.
No public records (court cases, criminal) are tracked either.
How it works:
Identity theft is growing at a shocking rate and as the world around you becomes increasingly connected by the internet, it’s not set to stop growing anytime soon. No one is safe from identity theft, but with identity theft protection services like Equifax’s ID Patrol you don’t need to lose any sleep from stress.
Equifax is well known as one of the three major credit reporting agencies that go into your credit score. Founded over a hundred years ago, this privately held company offers identity protection plans that can compete with the best of them.
ID Patrol is perfect for you if you like to tinker and take a hands-on approach to technology. Equifax has built tons of powerful online tools into its product including security freezes and customizable alerts that you can roll up your sleeves and play around with to your hearts content.
Most identity protection services take all of the power out of your hands and protect you under their terms. Equifax decided to take a hard right and does the exact opposite. You can set the specific dollar amounts or percentages that trigger an alarm. If you’re particularly concerned about identity theft, no problem set a smaller threshold. Getting too many alerts? Okay, go back online and set them a little higher. Feel free to play with it ad infinitum until you find the sweet spot you’re looking for.
Another unique feature ID Patrol has is their dormant card alerts. If the system spots a purchase from a credit or debit card you don’t often use, they’ll send out an alert. You can customize the amount of time it takes for a card to be considered dormant anywhere from 1 to 99 months. Only have one card or don’t care about this feature? Feel free to shut it off completely.
If you ever have a problem or just want to ask a specialist a question, Equifax offers 24/7 access to fraud specialists. Many competitors have similar claims but only offer off-business hours for emergencies. ID Patrol is different, the hotline is open anytime, for any reason. If you suspect something might be going down, every second counts and Equifax gets that, they would rather help you prevent theft then clean up the mess afterward.
One downside to Equifax is the limited self-help learning resources available online. Many competitors have extensive libraries you can use that include everything from what to do after identity theft, to preventing it, to related topics like common types of theft. If you’re comfortable with Google, this is easily overlooked as everything you could possible need is one search away.
Equifax offers two main plans to help protect your identity. While there’s no free trial, all of Equifax’s plans are on a monthly recurring basis and there’s no fee to cancel at any time.
The first plan is Equifax’s ‘Complete Premier Plan.’ Complete Premier will set you back $19.95 a month and includes everything you need for peace of mind. The daily credit monitoring, constant vigilance for any type of fraud, all of the highly customizable alerts and more are present. They also offer a $1 million warranty for costs incurred from identity theft and a one-stop shop for replacing all of your cards if you misplace your wallet.
The second and last plan is Equifax’s ‘Complete Family Plan.’ It comes with everything that the Premier plan did, but includes one additional adult and up to four kids in the price. The family plan costs $29.95 a month.
In addition to the two main plans, Equifax offers an addition service that can monitor your FICO score and track your purchasing power. It costs an additional $14.95 a month and comes with a few handy charts and reports you can use to track how healthy your score is and more importantly what’s been affecting it.
Equifax also has ID Patrol plans available for businesses that include data breach monitoring. If you want to use the service for corporate purposes, you’ll have to give Equifax a call as they don’t list any plans or prices on their website.
If you want to see your credit score, unfortunately Equifax only offers the 3-bureau scores once every 12 months. They do offer an add-on service to run your reports for a one time fee. It’s $39.95 for a report from all three major bureaus or if you only are concerned with Equifax’s score it’s $15.95.
Combining lots of customization with excellent customer service has made Equifax’s ID Patrol a very popular identity protection service. If you’re looking for protection service with a particular expertise in financial monitoring look no further, Equifax has what you need.
For complete rankings of all identity theft protection services, go here.
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