With a new victim being struck every 3 seconds, identity theft shows no signs of giving up its title of being the #1 crime in America. Consider that statistic of a new victim every 3 seconds. If the average person blinks their eyes every 4.2 seconds, then that means every time you blink, someone somewhere in America has just been struck by an identity thief.
Even though there were over 11 million victims of identity theft in America last year according to the FTC, only 10% of Americans said they had identity theft protection in a recent survey. 75% of respondents said that they did not have identity theft protection but believed they needed it. Why were they unprotected? Chances are, if you are reading this article, you are unprotected too.
The average victim will have to pay $500 to recover from each case of identity theft. That is only the average cost of the recovery itself. That average does not include the amount that the thief makes off with. Considering that the threat of identity theft is so quickly growing, why are so many Americans electing to avoid purchasing identity theft protection coverage? If the trends continue, and Americans continue to take their chances with identity theft believing that it won’t happen to them, the victim rates and losses are going to continue to grow.
There are multiple identity theft protection providers out there. The largest companies charge the highest rates due to their high advertising costs. These astronomical advertising costs are not taken out of their profits. These thousands, if not millions, in costs are covered by the customer in the form of higher monthly rates.
The smaller companies and providers have similar, if not the same, comprehensive coverage for a much lower cost. Their monthly rates are lower due to their low operating costs and smaller payrolls and overhead. This begs the question: do you want your monthly payment to be covering your coverage or the company’s high overhead and advertising costs?
While researching different providers for this article I realized something. I could not accurately compare the different companies’ services because they refer to a similar type of protection in different ways. For example, five different companies could all provide the same monitoring of data points in location X, but they would all refer to this process in 5 different ways. This word-play makes it nearly impossible to compare their services and protections accurately. What was apparent was that they all offer what appears to be the same comprehensive identity theft protection coverage.
Easy was the ability to compare the pricing of the different providers. One thing that was disappointing was how quickly the monthly rates grew when family members were added. Why charge so much extra for adding family members? These companies are selling a digital product. The product is not a tangible product that requires them purchase more supplies, build anything extra, ship it across country, etc. So why does the monthly charge double or more for adding a spouse and/or child(ren)?
After researching identity theft, identity theft protection, and identity theft protection providers, I reaffirmed my belief that everyone NEEDS to protect their family and themselves from identity theft. Not doing so can be nave and reckless. We make decisions everyday to protect ourselves and our finances. We lock our doors to keep out burglars, so why do we not lock our identities to keep away the identity thieves? The cost of monthly protection coverage pales in comparison to the average amount stolen and the cost of recovery that victims pay every day. Are you still going to risk going unprotected?
A clear price comparison chart can be seen here. You can also review the comprehensive protection offered by this provider here.. Check here for free reprint license: Identity Theft Protection – Are You Going Unprotected?.