January 20, 2006
Identify Theft Insurance - A Lot of Hot Air
Identity theft is a HUGE problem that can ruin your life, steal your time, take your money and other terrible things. Capitalizing on this, are several companies that offer ID theft insurance and protection services - but do they work well?
The Washington Post did some digging and writes Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, agreed that consumers should buy a monitoring service if they can afford one -- or take advantage of identity-fraud riders that some insurance companies offer as an inexpensive add-on to homeowner policies. But Dixon considers most ID insurance products unnecessary because financial losses are usually covered by the credit card company or bank after the incident takes place.
Ironically, many of the companies selling fraud protection are the same ones whose loose data-handling policies helped fuel identity theft in the first place, several analysts said. And most contended that Congress should require that credit bureaus notify consumers for free of any bogus information that appears in their records.
"It is an abomination that people have to pay for credit-monitoring services and ID-theft products," said Beth Givens, director of the nonprofit group Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "It should be stuff they get for free."
Get Small Business Technology Report
Via Email Every Tuesday
What is Smallbiztechnology.com?
Smallbiztechnology.com helps small-medium sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses and provides news, articles, discussion boards, resources, analysis & events for the owners of small to medium sized busineses.
Subscribe to the Smallbiztechnology feed.
Recent Posts
- All In One Network Appliances. Know Your Options.
- 9 Simple and Effective E-Commerce Sales Booster Ideas
- Power Point Presentations: Let It Be An Experience (Learning From Al Gore)
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising for Peanuts
- Downloading Microsoft Windows Updates Can Be Bad For Your Health
- Time is Money. How Are You Tracking Yours?
- Are You Collaborating Creatively?
- When Technology Embarrasses Us! :)
- Is Online Marketing Confusing You?
- Email Marketing Providers: How to Choose
Join our Facebook group
The Third Annual Small Business Summit 2008 was a smashing success. Check out the Summit site for what you missed. See the 2008 Summit presentations, video and photos!
Post a comment