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The closest competitor of the popular LifeLock is ConsumerDirect.com. Many other companies claiming to help you avoid becoming the victim of identity theft are simply credit monitoring companies, meaning that they monitor your credit report, alert you to suspicious changes, and then leave you to sort out the mess. Will ConsumerDirect.com protect you from identity theft better than LifeLock? Read on to find out.
What ConsumerDirect.com Offers
ConsumerDirect.com wants to help you control and improve your credit score. They communicate with most major financial institutions electronically and provide you with the means to do so also. They have “smart buttons” located on your electronic credit reports featured on their site that allow you, according to ConsumerDirect.com, to send requests to fix mistakes and obtain goodwill corrections, verify accounts, and remove identity theft from your credit report. Your requests are sent electronically to the proper financial institution and when credit reports are reviewed, they will receive your requests and update your report accordingly.
ConsumerDirect.com advises you on actions to take to improve your overall credit score and will also, at your request, put a credit lock on your accounts so that anyone wishing to obtain credit in your name will have identification verified. ConsumerDirect.com also monitors your credit report and will send you email alerts if any significant changes show up on your credit report. They also email you alerts when your credit report changes due to any requests you make through their secure site.
What LifeLock Offers
While ConsumerDirect.com gives you the tools to actively participate in improving your credit score, you are still left to do most of the work. LifeLock does the work for you. LifeLock might not have “smart buttons” that give you direct access to financial institutions, but they do give you peace of mind by automatically placing fraud alerts on your accounts without you having to activate a “credit lock.” ConsumerDirect.com’s credit lock requires creditors issuing new credit to verify your identity, but they say nothing about verifying your identity before taking out loans, applying for a job or an address change or opening a bank account. LifeLock’s comprehensive fraud alerts do all of these things so that you will be contacted should any of these situations occur. LifeLock also takes care of maintaining the fraud alerts so that you don’t have to try and remember to do it yourself.
All credit reports have instructions for correcting any errors, so ConsumerDirect.com’s method of contacting financial institutions through their site still requires that you do the work. Similarly, LifeLock leaves you to contact the credit bureau for mistakes, so these services match. But if your identity is stolen, LifeLock pledges up to $1 million towards hiring the right professionals to get your life and identity back into your own hands. ConsumerDirect.com mentions nothing about fixing identity thefts, just helping you remove it from your credit report.
If you want to pay ConsumerDirect.com to gain access to their detailed suggestions concerning improving your credit score and monitoring your credit report, know that this is where your money is going. If your credit needs improving, this is a great option. However, if you are truly concerned about protecting and preventing identity theft from happening to you, LifeLock is the clear winner.
