When a person’s identity gets stolen, it becomes his worst nightmare. But it has become a fairly common occurrence today. This has prompted many companies to come up with identity protection services which help not only help to protect but also recover data already stolen. IdentityForce and protectmyid are two examples of such services.

Protectmyid developed by Experian, which is a well known credit bureau, consists of a suite of services which help to prevent identity theft and also resolve any problems which might arise as a result of it.

On the other hand IdentityForce is a federal government contractor approved by GSA which helps to serve its clients by being vigilant, reporting unauthorised use of identity, helping with the client’s credit ratings and fast restoration and recovery of client’s identity and data in case of theft or a breach.

How do Identity Protection Services Work?

Good identity protection services work by

• Monitoring for
  • Change of address wherein a hacker might change the physical address of the client’s mail box,
  • Court records to ensure that their client’s identity is not being used by criminals,
  • Credit report to keep a track of any new changes which might hamper their client’s credit ratings like
    • Opening up a new bank account,
    • Exceeding current credit limits,
    • Missing out on payments and
    • Other credit inquiries.
  • Identity wherein websites including black market chat rooms are constantly searched to ensure the clients identity is not sold anywhere without his knowledge,
  • Payday loans which can be fraudulently obtained using the client’s social security number etc.
• Issuing Alerts and notifications for any type of data theft or illegal and unauthorised use of identity. These alerts are issued as soon as any breach of data is found in the process of constantly monitoring the above mentioned websites and other records.
• Enabling credit score access wherein the client gets access to his credit rating in all or any of the three credit rating bureaus, generally, at no extra cost. But protectmyid charges extra for these services as and when requested.
• Providing tools for online protection like anti-key logging, anti-phishing etc. They also proactively offer malware prevention so that the client’s sensitive data is safe.
• Restoration of identity theft as well as insurance along with assistance with lost or stolen credit and debit cards.

IdentityForce is software which offers all the above benefits along with a host of other advantages like expert assistance, excellent customer service, fast recovery of stolen identity etc. Its only disadvantage of not including antivirus software is negated by the addition of the online protection tools. Hence this software is worth giving a try.