LifeLock reviews got you dazed and confused?
Most of us have come to know and trust Norton and their suite of cybersecurity products. But when it comes to Identity Theft Protection, I’m here to say…
Slow down there cowboy, let’s not get trigger happy.
Whether or not you’ve been burned before, if you’re looking to protect you and and your family from Identity Theft there are better options out there than LifeLock.
In fact, of the seven Identity Theft Protection solutions I’ve used, they’re one of two that I have no interest in using again.
But hey, if you do sign up with LifeLock or anyone else for that matter, check out my links for the latest deals and recommendations. I always keep those up to date.
So why am I so disgruntled with LifeLock?
Let’s get our toes wet with a quick story about a boy and his phishing attempt.
That’s phishing with a PH. Like the jam band, only completely different.
One day this boy gets a phone call from someone claiming to be from his credit card company. One thing leads to another and the boy realizes he’s divulging his social security number and starts asking questions.
The alleged representative starts acting fishy, the boy gets nervous and hangs up.
Luckily, the boy remembers has an Identity Theft Protection plan from LifeLock as a smile lifts his rosy cheeks.
After getting sent around in circles on LifeLock’s website for a few minutes, the boy is finally able to find the phone number for customer support. He dials it up.
Three minutes later he’s connected with a human in a loud call center. The agent is nice enough, but English is clearly not their strong suit.
As the boy recounts his story there are lots of pauses on the other end as the agent types away. He’s asked to repeat parts of his story several times as the smile begins to fade from his face.
The agent advises the boy to block the number and that no further action is required. “Shouldn’t I be concerned?” The boy wonders as the agent types away.
A dull ache starts to form in the boy’s frontal lobe.
After several more confirmations of his story, the agent provides the boy with a case number. She then stumbles through a scripted reply ending with an assurance that the boy’s LifeLock plan includes $1M in identity theft insurance.
As the call comes to a close the boy feels uneasy, unsure of how to proceed, and alone.
It’s a sad story. I know because the little boy wasn’t a little boy at all, but rather a full-grown introverted man who is now writing this blog. Life is funny sometimes.
And every single time I’ve called LifeLock this is how it has been. Trust me, when something really bad happens you’re going to wish you were working with someone you could count on.
Now, every other Identity Theft Protection company I’ve worked with is way better in this regard, LifeLock is the standout. And with LifeLock, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Setting Up LifeLock
The way LifeLock works is that you input the personal information that you want to monitor and it will scan the dark web and send you an alert if it finds your information sitting there like a duck, waiting to be exploited.
Or at least, it should.
You can monitor all sorts of things like your phone numbers, addresses, mother’s maiden name, those types of things. Although it only allows you to monitor 5 email addresses, which isn’t quite enough for me.
LifeLock also monitors the public web for instances of your personal information, although unlike Aura and Identity Guard, they don’t proactively submit opt-out requests with data brokers on your help.
If you want them to do that you need to request it, and believe it or you need to pay them extra. This is the beginning of a theme we’ll come back to again and again.
I’m going to show you what LifeLock turns up for my personal information on the dark web in just a bit, but before I do that let’s talk a bit about the other types of monitoring LifeLock has to offer.
Features of LifeLock
Utility Account Monitoring
All of LifeLock’s plans monitor utility accounts, so if someone tries to open an electric account in your name, you’ll get an alert.
Credit Monitoring
They also offer credit monitoring, so if there are changes to your credit records like if someone opens up a card in your name, you’ll get an alert.
But this is where things start to get a little hazy with LifeLock’s tiered payment structure.
Extra Features That Need Plan Upgrade
Identity Alerts
If you want alerts on crimes committed in your name, like if someone uses your name when the get arrested, you’ll need the mid-tier Advantage plan.
If you want home title monitoring so that you get an alert if someone tries to add their name to your home deed—which sounds crazy, but it happens—you’ll need upgrade to their top-tier Ultimate Plus plan
Both of these are standard with Aura.
3-Bureau Credit Monitoring
Similarly, if you want 3-bureau credit monitoring, you’ll have to upgrade to their Ultimate Plus plan. 3-bureau credit monitoring is standard with companies life Aura and CompleteID.
Credit Scores and Reports
And if you want monthly credit scores and annual credit reports from all three bureaus, well you actually can’t get that with LifeLock. The most you can get from all three bureaus is annual scores and reports on their Ultimate Plus plan.
And if you want even 1-bureau scores and reports, you’ll need to upgrade to their advantage plan.
Credit Lock
LifeLock does offer the convenience of a credit lock to prevent unwanted inquiries into your credit file with the click of a button, but yes, you’ll need an upgraded plan.
Transaction Monitoring
And while transaction monitoring doesn’t come standard on LifeLock plans like it does with almost every other Identity Theft Protection company I’ve used, you can get if you upgrade to their Advantage Plan.
This allows you to link bank accounts and credit cards to monitor activity, and to set transaction thresholds so you can get alerts of any charges over the limits you set.
And you won’t find other bells and whistles like a VPN or antivirus included in any of LifeLock’s plans like you would with most of the other companies, probably because they’d prefer you buy Norton’s other standalone products.
Like Norton Antivirus, for example, which you way have been using back when Napster made a splash.
Norton does offer a free password manager though, and while it was targeted by hackers in early 2023, it seems to have held its own for the most part.
Dark Web Monitoring
So LifeLock has a couple of strikes against them with sub-par customer support and a pay-to-play pricing structure that pushes you towards the higher tiers, but their dark web monitoring must make up for it, right? This is Norton after all
Let’s see what Norton turns up for my personal information on the dark web.
I monitor the same personal information across all of the Identity Theft Protection solutions that I use. In the case of LifeLock, which only allows me to monitor 5 email addresses, I make sure to leave out one that returns no dark web alerts from any of the other companies.
Lucky for me my dark web alerts are limited to leaked login credentials—typically usernames and passwords at various websites. While that’s obviously not desirable, it could be a lot worse, and having some passwords leaked in a breach is nearly inevitable.
In total, LifeLock returns a total of 8 dark web alerts for my personal information, and all 8 of these are unique. They include my username and password from sites like Adobe, MySpace, and Dropbox.
Only 8 hits, that doesn’t seem to bad. But let’s compare it to others.
How does LifeLock compare to other Identity Theft Protection Solutions?
Dark Web Monitoring
Well, examples of good monitoring would include Aura and Identity Guard, which both turn up a total of 18 dark web alerts, 9 of which are unique. And IdentityForce turns up 20 dark web alerts, 10 of which are unique.
While dark web monitoring isn’t a perfect science and you usually won’t find complete crossover from company to company, LifeLock is missing a ton of data breech compilations on the dark web, which make up those non-unique alerts.
But even worse than that is that LifeLock doesn’t find the hits associated with one of my gmail addresses, and that includes my gmail login itself.
Now I’m good, I’ve long since changed that gmail password, but almost all of the other Identity Theft Protection solutions I’ve used find it on the dark web. It’s a bit concerning to me that LifeLock doesn’t find it, especially when it is something so sensitive and high profile.
When compared to the performance of the other Identity Theft Protection solutions I’ve used, I’d say that LifeLock’s monitoring is insufficient. But in addition to dark web monitoring, it is important to consider what an Identity Theft Protection solution offers for threat resolution.
Threat Resolution
We already know that LifeLock’s customer support leaves a lot to be desired, and that’s the last thing you want to be dealing with when you’re already having a rough day.
LifeLock’s plans do include US-based Identity Restoration Specialists, but remember, you have to get to them first.
Financial Backing
In terms of financial backing, LifeLock’s Standard plan was recently reworked to include up to $1,050,000 in coverage. Up to $1M of that is for lawyers and experts, up to $25,000 is for stolen funds reimbursement, and up to $25,000 in personal expense compensation.
$1M in identity theft insurance is standard at a minimum across all the other companies I’ve used, and I’m guessing LifeLock reworked the wording to stand out from the competition. Aura’s plans for example provide up to $1M per adult, which is up to $5M on their family plan.
And the others don’t break the coverage down into buckets, so I’d be curious if that extra $50,000 from LifeLock is really helping you at the end of the day.
Although with LifeLock’s upgraded plans comes upgraded insurance coverage, and on the advantage plan you get up to $1,200,000 in coverage, and up to $3M in coverage on their Ultimate Plus plan.
And if you do choose their family plans, the coverage is for each adult and you also get $1,050,000 for each child, which is definitely nice. Although if you read those footnotes it is not quite as good as it looks.
Conclusion
And at the end of the day you’re still dealing with LifeLock’s poor customer support and sub-par monitoring. Furthermore, the prices aren’t really all that great compared to the other companies, and keep in mind that they renew at a higher rate after the first year.
Personally, I’m really turned off by this convoluted pricing structure, and when you consider the whole picture the whole thing feels like one big up sell with not much of a foundation.
I’d highly recommend you check out Aura, they’re my favorite Identity Theft Protection right now, but really, there are a lot of good alternatives to LifeLock.
But whichever Identity Theft Protection you choose, remember to check out my links in here. I always keep that updated with my latest deals and recommendations.
You can check out my head-to-head comparison of LifeLock vs Aura too.
Leave a Reply