Identity theft on the rise, but proactive services like LifeLock helping greatly states report

February 12, 2010 – 10:21 am

According to a recent report by Javelin Strategy and Research, the number of victims of identity theft rose to 11 million in 2009. In addition, victims of credit, check and bank fraud also rose for the second year in a row.

But it’s not all bad news. The reports also says that victim’s costs and time spent to resolve identity theft have drastically decreased mostly due to proactive identity theft prevention services like LifeLock and others. Time is the main factor in how much identity theft can cost you. As most banks and credit card companies have fraud protection for the customer, most identity theft related costs incur due to the victim’s time off work, legal fees and out-of-pocket expenditures. The sooner that identity theft or identity fraud is discovered, the less cost is imposed to the victim.

The average time to resolve identity theft and fraud fell to 21 hours this past year. Still, the average person was still left to pay $373 for the experience. It’s easy to see why inexpensive proactive identity theft prevention services like LifeLock — which can be obtained for 10% off when you apply and enter the promotional code DEFENSE — really pay off in the end. Especially now that LifeLock has debuted Command Center, which notifies you the instant that your name and information appears for sale on criminal trading websites. LifeLock can alert you before your identity is even traded or sold, saving you precious money… and time.

In fact, the report even states that credit monitoring and proactive services are “one of Javelin’s best customer safety preventative recommendations because [they] are extremely effective in early fraud detection.” Make sure that if the worst happens you have a service you can count on.

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