461 - Do you offer more than monitoring services for your employees?

Identity theft has been around since biblical times but it was never as prevalent as it is in the 21st Century.

The internet changed the way our personal data is handled.

The following information comes mainly from Wikipedia and the FTC, with my summation added in.

In 2005, Tod Davis and Robert J. Maynard, founded LifeLock, claiming to be an identity theft protection company.

One of the first companies of its type, Tod Davis went s step further by advertising his social security number on the side of a truck and on big billboards.

That caught everyone's attention, including identity thieves who stole his identity 13 times between 2007 and 2008.

The company led Americans to believe that identity theft was 100% preventable with their services..

Americans believed it. What most of them don't know is:

In March 2010, according to Wikipedia, LifeLock was fined $12 million by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising.

The FTC called the company's prior marketing claims misleading to consumers by claiming to be a 100% guarantee against all forms of identity theft.

(LifeLock pretty much ignored that fine. Five years went by...)

In 2015, the FTC found LifeLock to be in contempt of the 2010 agreement, charging that they "failed to establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program", and "falsely advertised that it protected consumers' sensitive data".

The FTC obtained a $100 million monetary penalty against LifeLock to settle the contempt charge.

You can see the FTC article here: https://bit.ly/3s8TXx3

ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR FINE!

Why didn't we see that on the news?

Because the company advertises on every major news network and pays famous personalities to endorse them.

This was advertising at its best and people bought into it.

The damage was done.

My personal opinion is that LifeLock is a leading culprit for misinforming the public and keeping them blissfully ignorant for too many years.

Americans believe that identity theft is not as critical as it actually is and that it is preventable.

No one can prevent identity theft.

I'm not trying to spread doom and gloom. My goal is to educate and protect small business owners and their employees.

LifeLock is not the only company that has caused problems.

New companies pop up all the time because monitoring is cheap and people will buy based on the low price and enticing advertising.

So, dear LinkedIn friends, forgive me when I continue to talk about identity theft, but it's important.

Identity Theft is costing businesses a lot of money, employees are taking private time off of work to handle issues and people deserve to know how to work smarter to prevent as much as they can.

The cost of offering comprehensive protection is minimal compared to the cost of a lawsuit caused by a data breach.

Do you currently offer more than monitoring services for your employees?