IDENTITY PROTECTION REVIEWS
Zander Identity Theft Review
Dave Ramsey Loves Zander’s ID Theft Protection Plan, Should You?
Popular American financial author, radio host, television personality, and motivational speaker endorses Zander Insurance’s ID Theft protection plan. If you listen to Dave Ramsey’s endorsement on Zander’s ID theft page he states:
“…I got together with Jeff Zander of Zander Insurance to develop the identity safeguard program. I knew my listeners, my employees, even my family needed a way to protect themselves.”
Now while I respect Dave Ramsey as an author and educator, if he’s claiming ownership (partial or otherwise) of Zander’s Identity Safeguard Pan, I don’t think Lifelock or Identity Guard need worry about Zander grabbing all their business. It’s not a bad service but in this incredibly competitive industry, there are just too many choices for consumers not to insist on a great service. As someone who considers themselves an expert on identity protection plans, Zander’s plan falls short in the critical detection part which should be essential in any identity theft service.
How Does Zander Insurance’s Identity Protection Work?
- Free Annual Credit Reports
- Assistance in Using Existing Consumer Services
- Full Managed Recovery
- Reimbursement
Zander will send you reminders to order your free credit report through annualcreditreport.com.
Zander will integrate and assist you in using existing programs already available to you like the Do Not Call Registry, Opt-Out program and Fraud Alerts.
When a member becomes a victim, an expert recovery advocate will handle all phases of the recovery process. The Zander advocate will stay on the case until it is resolved and will handle all disputes on the members behalf related to new account fraud, medical ID fraud, social security, insurance, benefit and employment fraud, etc. In addition, they will work to remove any criminal or civil judgments, and provide information to the Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies.
Individual and family participants will be reimbursed for lost income and expenses associated with identity theft up to $20,000.
Analysis
At $6.50/month for individuals and $12.50/month for famalies, Zander is very affodrably priced.
This is one area where Zander’s ID theft services fall short. Basically the prevention aspect of their program involves educating you on the use of existing consumer resources and a monthly newsletter alerting you to scams.
Zander’s ID Theft program doesn’t scan public databases or black market websites for your private information and the only tool available is the free copy of your annual credit report you are already entitled too. You are no better off than a non member at being able to detect that identity theft has occurred.
Zander does offer members unlimited recovery assistance by a recovery expert until complete resolution has been achieved. They will handle all aspects of your case as well as insuring that any fraudulent criminal or civil judgments resulting from identity theft are removed.
Opinion
Zander’s ID Theft program is aggressively priced at $6.50/month but for a few dollars more you can get far more value and protection in a program like TrustedID’s IDEssentials™. Besides the recovery assistance, Zander’s doesn’t offer members much value in the prevention or detection department. Sure, it’s nice to know that in the case of identity theft you’ll have somebody holding your hand as you go through the tedious process of restoring your identity but it would be nicer if some resources were devoted to preventing the theft in the first place.
THE GOOD: Unlimited personalized resolution services.
THE BAD: Only unlimited personalized resolution services.
Visit zander.com to sign up.
Category: Identity Theft Services, Zander
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Well I do love his books but good review. Thanks.
Zander ID Theft doesn’t do anything. It’s cheap but you get what you pay for. Go with GuardDog ID or TrustedID.
The emphasis on prevention and detection is the fallacy of the entire ID Theft industry. You can’t prevent ID Theft. You can take certain “common sense” steps to help avoid certain exposures. However, all of the companies you noted as offering prevention/detection services, especially those with million dollar guarantees, are basically just marketing hype that play upon people’s lack of understanding of what ID Theft really is and how is occurs. The plans you noted as being of value almost exclusively focus only on Financial ID Theft which now accounts for less than 1/2 of all ID Theft events. They tend to emphasize credit monitoring, fraud alerts, freezes and other nebulously defined prevention services that on their best day have been proven to have limited effectiveness. That is why the founder of LifeLock has been a victim of ID Theft 13 times along with all of their other legal and FTC issues. Additionally, the restoration/assistance services offered, if you do become a victim, are severely limited by specifically worded “guarantees” that only apply through the fault and defect of their service. If a creditor extends credit without checking your credit report then where is the fault and defect of the credit monitoring service. It is a marketing shell game which is why the FTC came down so hard on these players recently. In addition, most of all these preventative or detection services can be done for free on your own which is another reason not to waste money on them.
The other major issue of prevention/detection is related to the ever growing uses for people personal information. ID Theft has grown to include Medical, Insurance, Benefit, Social Security, IRS, Utility, Employment and Criminal fraud which has nothing to do with new account/financial fraud. None of these events show up on your credit bureau so there is no way for these plans to detect or prevent their occurrence. The plans you noted really equate to buying extra smoke detectors for your home but going without fire insurance which is not a very effective strategy.
Dave Ramsey’s endorsement of our program for his listeners is based on the same premise he emphasizes every day regarding smart financial decisions. You want to find a plan that provides you the broadest protection possible for the risks you face and to do so in the most economical manner. This allows you to transfer away risk that you don’t want to assume but save dollars so that you can emphasize more important financial priorities such as getting out of debt.
I appreciate the forum that you have created and hope my comments have added value.