FTC Accuses LifeLock of False Advertising Again

An anonymous reader writes: You may remember LifeLock — it's the identity protection company whose CEO published his social security number and dared people to steal his identity. Predictably, 13 different people succeeded. LifeLock was later sued for deceptive marketing practices, and eventually settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to the tune of $12 million. Part of that settlement, of course, required that they refrain from misrepresenting their services in the future. Now, the FTC is taking action against them again, saying they failed to live up to that promise. The FTC claims (PDF) LifeLock falsely advertised that it "protected consumers' sensitive data with the same high-level safeguards as financial institutions" and also failed build systems to protect the data they held.

Comments

Re:Who needs Lifelock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Providing SS numbers, credit card numbers, bank info and personal info to Lifelock actually may make a person less safe.

Many will say that this is bad advice but

[Anon-Admin]

Back in 2000 the company I worked for "Accidentally" put everyones info (HR Database) on the public FTP site. Including Bank account info, all the security questions, ss#, salaries, etc.

At that time I looked into "Protecting" myself from identity theft and realized there was an easy solution.

1) Run my credit into the ground. Someone stealing an identity does not want to clean up your credit. They want an easy target.
2) Pay off all my debts. Believe it or not, paying off your debts without creating new ones lowers your credit score.
3) Live off what I make! No credit cards, no loans, no credit.

Now, 15 years later, I have 4 cars, a boat, 12.5 acres in the country, and a house. I got the home loan before I did all of this and it is the only debt I have left. The rest was saved for and I paid cash for them.

It is amazing how much cash you have when you are not loosing 12%, 15%, or 25%, to interest on loan payments.