LifeLock and TransUnion have entered in to an agreement in which the process for placing fraud alerts by LifeLock will be automated. Previously LifeLock called the credit bureaus on behalf of their clients to set the fraud alert. This was a contention of Experian in their LifeLock lawsuit as they believed the spirit of the FACT Act passed by congress was only intended for consumers to place fraud alerts and not others on their behalf. The agreement puts to rest the legal issue concerning LifeLocks manual setting of fraud alerts and allows them do so more efficiently and accurately.
“Protecting consumers just became easier,” said LifeLock CEO Todd Davis. “While we have been growing our company by providing a strong layer of defense against identity theft, we have been looking to develop a business solution with the credit bureaus that takes advantage of leading technology and provides our members with a process unchallenged in our industry.”
Other identity theft protection services such as TrustedID and Identity Guard already had agreements in place with one of the major credit bureaus and as such there services were not challenged by Experian. Experian seems to have been shut out of any agreements with other companies for the placing of fraud alerts. It seems that they would have been much better off signing an agreement with LifeLock rather then launching a lawsuit against them. Experians resistance to the fraud alerts employed by LifeLock is likely due to the fact that LifeLock took a lot of business away from their credit monitoring services and prevents them from marketing pre-approved credit card offers and other opportunities to consumers. Credit Bureaus earn a large portion of their revenues by selling our private information to companies looking to market their products. It is unclear why some credit bureaus have embraced the automated technology used by identity protection companies and prefer to sign deals with them rather then oppose them. TransUnion president of Consumer Services, Mark Marinko had this to say.
“We believe in empowering consumers through education and choice. This effort will help ensure that regardless of whether consumers choose to manage their own credit directly through the services TransUnion provides or authorize LifeLock to handle those kinds of responsibilities on their behalf, their requests and personal information will be handled in a highly efficient and secure manner.”
The agreement between LifeLock and TransUnion is good for consumers because consumers want choices and apparently a lot of Americans prefer the protection of LifeLock as evidenced by the 1.3 million people who have enrolled in their identity protection service. Learn more about LifeLock and their services with our unbiased review.