Identity Guard Review
Identity Guard has been rated as one of this year’s top credit monitoring and identity protection companies by AdvisoryHQ News.
Below, we present a more detailed overview of Identity Guard, including the many factors (pros and cons) that you should consider before deciding to use Identity Guard.
Identity Guard Review: Is it Right for You?
Identity theft is a common problem of the digital age, and you need to take measures to protect yourself.
There are over 100 options in the marketplace for ID theft protection. However, the question is, which service should you choose? More specifically, should you choose Identity Guard?
The remainder of this article will provide a detailed review of Identity Guard to help you determine whether or not Identity Guard is right for you.
Image source: Pixabay
Identity Guard Review at a Glance
Identity Guard is a consumer product created by Intersections Inc., a company specializing in the identity theft protection. It claims to offer better service than its consumer-targeted counterparts, LifeLock and TrustedID.
With the Identity Guard Total Protection plan, customers get credit report updates from all three bureaus four times a year or every three months.
Below, is a visual comparison of Identity Guard, LifeLock, and TrustedID as displayed on Identity Guard’s website.
Identity Guard Prices
Prices for identity protection services run from $0 to $30 per month. In this case, free might not be the way to go. In 2012 alone, people lost $24.7 billion to identity theft, so penny-pinching now could lead to much bigger losses further down the road.
However, keep in mind that the most expensive services are not necessarily the best either. Identity Guard provides plans at three different price points. The cheapest plan is Identity Guard Essentials, which costs $9.99 per month. Their mid-priced plan is Identity Guard Total Protection at $19.99 per month. Last but not least, the Identity Guard Platinum goes for $24.99 per month.
Range of Protection Provided
Identity theft protection services differ across the industry. Some credit monitoring service companies provide you with monthly reports of all three of your credit scores. Others don’t. Some alert you immediately if there is suspicious activity. Others don’t.
Even within a company, different plans will offer different services, so be clear on this: What are you getting for your money?
Monitoring Plans Offered by Identity Guard – This Is Key
Here is Identity Guard’s monitoring plan comparison:
Image source: Identity Guard
Identity Guard Customer Service
If something goes wrong, you do not want to spend two hours listening to telephone music while an automated voice tells you how important of a customer you are. Especially in cases of identity theft, where time is of the essence, excellent customer service is essential.
With this in mind, let’s see what past and current customers have had to say in their Identity Guard reviews.
Identity Guard Reviews – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
From the graph above, you can see that while over half of Identity Guard consumer reports are positive, there also exists a large number of disgruntled customers. The bad Identity Guard reviews range from “not impressed” to “disappointed” and worse.
Customers have had problems with logging into their accounts, not being notified of credit breaches and debit card theft, poor customer service, and difficulties in recovering their losses after an incident of theft had occurred.
On the positive side, Identity Guard comes from a company that has been in business for twenty years. They have many loyal customers that have little to comment on the service except that they are satisfied. Additionally, the company’s services are legitimate and not a scam.
Identity Guard Reviews – The Good
The most positive aspects of Identity Guard are that it offers a range of plans to suit each customer’s needs, has a long history of continued success, and has loyal customers that have stayed with the service for many years.
These are some examples of positive (4 or 5 star) Identity Guard reviews:
- “They appeared to be the best that I’ve seen as far as reviews go, and it was very easy to join and set up my info. However, the first two or three times I tried to log in, I couldn’t do it. The server was busy or something, but my login just kept sitting there until I gave up. I hope it was because of increased business and that we are past that now. When they tell me I have an alert, I don’t want to spend two days trying to find out what it is. Today I logged in quickly – yay! – that is good news.”
- “I am very happy with the services that I receive from Identity Guard. I think they offer a wonderful monitoring service that is in-depth. They also provide timely credit reports and score updates, and this is all done at a reasonable cost, I think.”
Identity Guard Reviews – The Bad (and the Ugly)
The ugliest Identity Guard reviews come from customers who have experienced poor service and bad customer service when they tried to report a problem. These are the most common problems that customers have had and the verdicts on whether or not they should become deciding factors:
Logging into Accounts: Some customers have had issues with logging into their Identity Guard accounts. Some customers have forgotten their passwords and experienced a large amount of difficulty in retrieving them. Verdict: Not too big of a deal, but if an email alert is sent out and technical problems keep you from seeing the details of the issue at hand, then this kind of delay could become very irritating.
Poor Customer Service: This is the most common complaint from unhappy Identity Guard customers, where it was sometimes difficult to get in touch with a customer service representative.
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Is Identity Guard Right for You?
You are the only one who can answer that question, but below is a little something to help you out. Here is a summary of the pros and cons of Identity Guard:
Pros
- You seem to get more for your money: all three scores from all three major credit bureaus four times per year
- Identity Guard comes from a well-established company with a long history (20 years)
- Many customers are satisfied with the service received when using Identity Guard
Cons
- Some instances of poor customer service
- Customers sometimes have difficulty logging into their online accounts to check their credit
Now that you know all that there is to know about Identity Guard and have seen some illuminating Identity Guard reviews, you should be better prepared to make a decision.
Just remember that identity theft is a dark reality of the technological world that we live in, and you need to choose the best possible option to keep yourself and your family out of harm’s way.
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