IDShield Identity Protection: A Great Bargain
Our Verdict
Get IDShield if you're primarily interested in keeping an eye on your credit score without spending a lot. Merely if you desire comprehensive identity protection likewise, consider IdentityForce UltraSecure + Credit.
For
- Very inexpensive
- Monthly TransUnion credit score
- Trend Micro antivirus software, VPN and password director
Against
- Support and setup issues
- No credit-improvement simulator
- No 24/7 tech support
- No Experian or Equifax credit scores
Tom'due south Guide Verdict
Become IDShield if y'all're primarily interested in keeping an eye on your credit score without spending a lot. But if you want comprehensive identity protection as well, consider IdentityForce UltraSecure + Credit.
Pros
- +
Very cheap
- +
Monthly TransUnion credit score
- +
Trend Micro antivirus software, VPN and password director
Cons
- -
Support and setup problems
- -
No credit-improvement simulator
- -
No 24/7 tech back up
- -
No Experian or Equifax credit scores
An inexpensive fashion to protect your online identity, IDShield gives you the option of monitoring ane or all three major credit-reporting agencies, including a monthly credit score from TransUnion. You also go a password manager, antivirus software and VPN service provided by Trend Micro.
Simply the service lacks ii-gene authentication, a credit-improvement simulator or 24/vii tech support. IDShield's sign-up procedure was frustratingly long and awkward.
IdentityForce UItraSelect + Credit costs more but has more than comprehensive personal-information monitoring; still, IDShield is one of the best identity theft protection services.
Read on for the balance of our IDShield review.
I signed up and paid for IDShield'south Private monthly service in early 2019, along with 4 competing services, when IDShield still offered only data from the TransUnion credit bureau. I used IDShield for nearly three months, with the service keeping an eye on my accounts and credit.
IDShield: Costs and what'due south covered
IDShield is among the least expensive identity-protection services, fifty-fifty though it has raised its prices from the terminal fourth dimension we reviewed it. Each of its four plans comes with a 30-day free trial.
IDShield'southward awkwardly worded Individual 1 Credit Bureau Monitoring programme costs $xiv.95 a month. On the downside, you get what you pay for, as this program monitors just your TransUnion credit file.
In that location's too an Individual three Credit Bureau Monitoring plan that keeps an eye on your Equifax and Experian credit files as well. At $19.95 per calendar month, this is just a bit more than half LifeLock Ultimate Plus' or IdentityIQ Secure Max's monthly prices.
At $29.95 per month, IDShield'south Family ane Credit Bureau Monitoring service is a relatively affordable mode to protect your identity as well every bit those of your spouse and up to 10 children. Information technology includes monitoring of your TransUnion credit file.
IDShield'due south three-agency plans continue an eye on your complete credit history while watching for abuse.
The $34.95-per-month Family unit 3 Credit Bureau Monitoring programme monitors Equifax, Experian and TransUnion credit files and is 4 cents cheaper per month than LifeLock'southward top private program.
Unfortunately, there's no discount for any IDShield plan if you lot pay for a year upwards front. You will get yearly discounts with IdentityForce or LifeLock.
Other than the numbers of credit bureaus monitored, IDShield's one-bureau and three-bureau plans are exactly the aforementioned, a rarity in an industry where the all-time perks are normally saved for the priciest plans.
Both IDShield plans do the same identity and credit monitoring for a variety of ID-theft methods and offering the same benefits, including monthly VantageScore credit scores based on your TransUnion credit file and upwards to $1 one thousand thousand for identity restoration and lost funds.
The parent visitor, LegalShield, as well offers a diversity of other services, from legal help to insurance for truck drivers. You'll also get signed upward for an analogousness program that offers discounts at Costco, Sam's Lodge, Verizon and a variety of other retailers and service providers.
LegalShield rates a A+ with the Amend Business organisation Bureau, with no open up complaints listed at the time of this review.
In May 2020, IDShield added several features related to online and home privacy, as well as cyberbullying, social-media corruption and online reputation management. And beginning in Oct 2021, all IDShield subscribers got free subscriptions to Trend Micro Maximum Security antivirus software, including a countersign manager and unlimited VPN service — a service that normally costs $xc per year on its own.
Users of all four IDShield plans volition exist able to receive one-on-i privacy consultations via telephone or email, covering such topics as removing personal data from online data brokers, selecting appropriate privacy settings for smart TVs, managing voice-assistant privacy settings, selecting web-browser options, adjusting social-media privacy settings, and monitoring online cyberbullying.
Automatic monitoring of social-media accounts is also included, but for those IDShield customers will have to provide IDShield with credentials to adults and/or children's social-media accounts. Both types of accounts will be monitored for language and content, and for personally identifiable information such equally Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers and dates of birth.
IDShield: Program comparing chart
| | IDShield Individual 1 Credit Agency Monitoring | IDShield Individual 3 Credit Bureau Monitoring |
| Monthly cost | $15 | $20 |
| Family plan | $30, covers 2 adults & up to x kids | $35, covers 2 adults & up to 10 kids |
| Mobile apps | Yeah | Aye |
| Credit reports | None | None |
| Credit bureaus monitored | TransUnion | Equifax, Experian, TransUnion |
| Frequency of credit reports | None | None |
| Frequency of credit scores | Monthly | Monthly |
| Type of credit score | TransUnion VantageScore 3.0 | TransUnion VantageScore 3.0 |
| Bank, bill of fare accounts monitored | Aye | Yes |
| Black-market place monitoring | Yep | Yes |
| Sex offender alert | Yes | Yes |
| Data breach alerts | Yep | Yes |
| Investment account monitoring | Yeah | Yes |
| Max. ID-theft coverage | $1 million | $ane million |
| Max. lost-wages payout | $one,500 per calendar week for v weeks | $1,500 per week for 5 weeks |
IDShield: Credit scores and monitoring
IDShield's iii-bureau plans keep an eye on your credit files at each credit bureau while watching for abuse.
A couple of other identity-protection services nosotros've reviewed offering quarterly credit reports, which you can also get for free every year through annualcreditreport.com. PrivacyGuard offers a monthly credit study, but information technology's a "merged" i with data from all iii bureaus.
IDShield provides a monthly TransUnion VantageScore 3.0 credit scores for assessing your creditworthiness earlier you try to get a machine loan or a mortgage. If you have an identity-takeover crisis, IDShield can work with all 3 credit bureaus to restore your credit.
The service scans both the open and dark web for instances of your personal information popping up where it shouldn't be. In addition to court records, payday loan companies and social media accounts, it monitors your bank and credit-card accounts also every bit investments.
More: Credit Reports vs. Credit Scores: What'south the Departure?
IDShield: Insurance and services
IDShield used to have $5 one thousand thousand available per subscriber for identity-theft investigation and credit recovery, but that didn't include repayment for money that was stolen.
The insurance service now is in line with those of other identity-protection services and provides up to $i million for a subscriber's credit restoration and fund reimbursement. It adds what it calls an unlimited service guarantee that promises to do whatever it takes to restore your identity and skillful credit.
IDShield was hands the longest and well-nigh frustrating of the five identity-protection services for me to set upward. The entire process took a week.
IDShield will even notify creditors, fiscal service providers, police force enforcement and collection agencies of the status of your investigation. If the investigation hits a dead-finish, the investigators promise to bring in heavy hitters such every bit the Federal Trade Committee, country attorneys general and others.
IDShield covers everything from the cost of new documents (such as a driver's license or passport) to fees for notaries and accountants. If you need information technology, they will reimburse you for child or elderberry care costs (up to $2,000) straight associated with the identity investigation and recovery also as a maximum of $1,500 a week (for five weeks) for lost wages and $2,000 for travel expenses.
The plan also has lost or stolen wallet protection that can aid you abolish old credit cards and become new ones, besides as tell you how to go a new driver's license and other documents.
IDShield: Notifications and alerts
IDShield doesn't put alerts and notifications up front end on your online account'south Overview web folio, nor is there a category to quickly get to them. Information technology took a piddling while to get used to the spider web interface'due south pattern, but I figured out that diving into the Credit Monitoring or Identity Monitoring sections on the left side put the notifications in your face.
Alerts range from credit and debit menu action to bank-account warnings, and can cover up to x investment accounts, including 401(chiliad) accounts.
Alerts can be emailed to yous or texted to your phone, merely they will also show up in the Android and iOS IDShield apps. If a registered sex offender moves in within a specified distance of your home, you'll get a map specifying his or her residence. All the same, IDShield missed a sexual practice offender that PrivacyGuard noticed. During my three-month test period, IDShield sent me two other, minor alerts.
IDShield: Setup
IDShield was easily the longest and most frustrating of the five identity-protection services for me to ready. The unabridged procedure took a week. I doubtable mine may be a special example, but it still doesn't inspire confidence in IDShield's tech-support infrastructure.
The procedure started with me picking the IDShield Private one-bureau programme (the three-agency plan was not withal available) and selecting my state of residence. At this bespeak, the company tried to upsell me on LegalShield'southward legal, minor-concern and commercial-driver services; I declined them all.
In the next class, I typed in my proper noun, engagement of nascency, accost, email, abode phone and the terminal four digits of my Social Security number, followed by a username and password and a credit-card number to pay for the service.
And then far, so good. But the activation email I received iii hours afterwards was for LegalShield, not IDShield. Information technology didn't comprise the membership number I needed to activate my IDShield account.
MORE: What to Do If Your Social Security Number Is Stolen
IDShield's telephone tech-support people were merely as dislocated as I was. They constitute I had 2 unlike membership numbers.
One might have been a leftover from the subscription I had to effort out IDShield for a previous review, simply I had no problems with Identity Force, Identity Guard or LifeLock, which I had too used before. It may be that IDShield doesn't totally wipe personal data after users accept concluded subscriptions.
IDShield's tech-support staffers told me to sit tight and promised to telephone call me back. The next morning, I got an email bulletin, not a call, with a new membership number. But the IDShield website said information technology couldn't find an business relationship with that number.
I replied to the electronic mail asking for help, got no response afterwards waiting for two hours and finally just called the company again. Subsequently listening to the same music while on hold, I was told by tech support staff that there was a problem on their servers.
To make a long story short, information technology took a calendar week and four tech-support calls to become my IDShield account set up. During this period, several emails I sent to the company got but automatic replies.
One of the reasons for this mess may be that IDShield does non take tech-support staff on duty 24/7. Its crew is there from seven a.one thousand. to 7 p.m. Central time, Monday to Fri. Many other identity-protection services offer 24/7 tech support. But in an identity emergency, IDShield has people available to assistance nighttime or mean solar day.
IDShield: Interface and utilities
Like other identity-protection services, IDShield has a web interface and mobile apps for iOS and Android. The website uses a secure HTTPS connection, simply its interface is crowded. Regardless of which programme you subscribe to, the company labels its web interface as "IDShield Plus."
The Overview page displays 15 rectangles, each with a different part, which can be a tad confusing until you have a visual memory of their placement. They range from Credit Score and Tracker to public records and a sexual practice-offender monitoring map. Simply the VantageScore — based on my TransUnion credit report in my one-bureau programme — has a splash of color, with green beingness good and red bad.
Some boxes, like Social Media Monitoring, crave some other pace. Click on the box and fill in your passwords for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, so IDShield can keep an eye on these services.
A left-mitt navigation bar links to Credit and Identity Monitoring, Lost Wallet Protection and Helpful Tips, as well as the Vault password manager, which works with the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari browsers. (An IDShield spokesperson told us that the password director doesn't get much use and may be dropped.)
IDShield does non offer two-factor authentication to prevent anyone with your password from accessing your information. Simply Identity Force has this security-enhancing feature; the others say it's of import or that they're working on integrating information technology, but it'south kind of inexcusable that they don't accept it yet.
IDShield's Android and iOS apps were a piffling sluggish, but welcomed me with my TransUnion VantageScore along with recent alerts. The settings carte in the apps let you change your password and included information about the Vault password managing director, protection tips and how to reduce unwanted marketing calls. All the screens brandish the tech-support phone number.
IDShield: Cancellation
I couldn't find a mode to cancel my IDShield subscription through the spider web interface. So I sent the company's tech-support people an emailed query and got an immediate auto-reply that my state of affairs would exist addressed in 24 to 48 hours.
About a day later, I got an email confirmation that my subscription had been canceled. Unfortunately, the advertising emails from LegalShield continued.
IDShield review: Bottom line
IDShield'south three-bureau monitoring plans are an undeniable bargain, especially if you're primarily interested in keeping an centre on your credit reports and scores, or want to monitor your family'due south personal data. If yous're not facing whatsoever special threat of identity theft, y'all might not need to pay any more.
Even so, LifeLock Ultimate Plus offers the most comprehensive identity monitoring (and a compelling deal on antivirus software) for the truly paranoid, though it costs twice as much every bit IDShield.
The happy medium amidst best identity theft protection services is IdentityForce UltraSecure + Credit, which offers both inclusive personal-data monitoring and quarterly credit reports and scores.
UPDATED with add-on of Trend Micro antivirus software, password managing director and VPN. This review was originally published June 27, 2019.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/id-shield,review-2810.html
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