The LoudSiren Debix Identity Protection Network has added another beneficial feature to their offering and it is one we are very happy about. As an addition to their leading edge and patent pending fraud alert technology system Debix has implemented an Incident Response Specialist to act immediately upon the notice of a fraudulent credit application as a coordinator between you the lending institution and law enforcement. This is how the LoudSiren Debix system works.

1. You enroll in their services and pay them $99/year or $89 by using our LoudSiren discount.

2. You give a quick recording of your voice, give up to three phone numbers you can be contacted at and choose a personal identification number (PIN) as you would for a bank card. (explained later)

3. LoudSiren Debix will set your fraud alerts at all three credit bureaus and place their phone number (explained later), not yours, in your credit file. LoudSiren ensures that the fraud alert is set correctly and in the event it is not, or a lending institution fails to follow their legal requirement to call you or verify your identity, you are protected by their $25,000 insurance policy and 1 million dollar guarantee. Please note: A study by Debix in August 2006 showed that 40% of fraud alerts placed by consumers on their own were not set properly at all three bureaus.

4. LoudSiren will remove you from pre-approved credit offers, junk mail and unwanted telemarketing lists in addition to your yearly 3 bureau credit report. Note: Removal from the National Do Not Call List is optional.

5. You apply for credit so the loan officer or car salesman pulls your credit file from one of the bureaus and notices it has been flagged with a fraud alert requiring him to verify the identity of the person he is dealing with by calling the phone number in your credit file. This will be the LoudSiren Debix Safe phone number that they placed in your file on your behalf. When the loan officer calls that number it will automatically ring all three of your phone numbers (usually home, work and cell phone). You answer and will hear your own voice recording so you know this is a legitimate call. You will then hear the requested credit application and you simply enter your PIN and approve the transaction.

6. An identity thief applies for credit and as above you get a call and hear your voice but this time, since you know it is a credit fraud attempt, you simply hit the star button to decline the credit request and you are immediately connected to an Incident Response Specialist in Austin, Texas from Debix. They will investigate the attack instantly and will work with the lender in addition to engaging law enforcement when appropriate. Note: We absolutely love this feature as it can put the predator who was attempting to use your private information right where he belongs. Behind bars.

Without a doubt this is the best fraud alert system available giving the LoudSiren Debix team many advantages over other identity theft protection companies. These advantages are:

• They keep your cell phone number out of the hands of the credit bureaus and all creditors by giving them the LoudSiren Debix Safe phone number. Since you will recognize the Safe Number it also ensures you don’t miss a call from a creditor phone number you don’t recognize.
• Since you will hear your pre-recorded voice you will know if any call asking you to provide authorization for credit is legitimate and not a phone scam.
• The LoudSiren Debix system has an extra level of security due to a PIN that must be entered to approve credit.
• All calls to the LoudSiren Safenumber are automatically forwarded to three phone numbers and if you don’t answer you are informed by voice mail and email of a pending request. This not only gives you instant credit when you want it but also avoids any phone tag between you and a creditor.
• There is an audit trail of all calls placed to you which can prove very useful in a dispute resolution.
• In an identity theft attempt an incident response specialist is there with you from the beginning when you need them most. They will contact the lender ensuring that they know the application is fraudulent and find out if the identity thief is present. They will involve the appropriate law enforcement agency depending on the location of the attempted fraud and the nature of the case.

We love the addition of an incident response specialist and believe it will not only catch criminals red handed but more importantly will deter them from committing the crime in the first place as the risk of getting caught increases dramatically.

Fraud alerts are the single best weapon we have against identity theft and the system employed by the Loudsiren Debix team is the best fraud alert system on the market. It may not be for everyone as some people prefer to receive a phone call directly from the lender but we believe the advantages of their system is significant. When you combine this with a stellar reputation in the identity theft protection industry and add $25,000 worth of insurance and a $1,000,000 guarantee you know you have a winner. This is why states and cities who have experienced large data breaches hired Debix to protect the identity of their affected residents and this is why we gave the Loudsiren Debix team our highest rating. If you are worried at all about identity theft, and we believe every American should be, then we suggest you put your mind at ease by protecting your reputation, good name, hard earned money and future credit opportunities. Enroll in the LoudSiren Identity Protection Network today and help take a bite out of this devastating crime.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean announced today that all 337,000 registered voters whose personal information was compromised will get free identity theft protection through Debix. The move is in response to a large outcry from concerned and frustrated residents. The compromise occurred when two laptops were stolen from the Davidson County Election Commission in a burglary that occurred over the Christmas Holiday season. The stolen laptops were not encrypted though they did have password protection.

“My goal is to not only protect the voters whose Social Security numbers have been put at risk, but also to protect the integrity of the election process. We’re going into an extremely important election season and I want all citizens to feel 100 percent confident that they can and should participate in this process without worrying about their personal information being compromised,” Dean said.

The City signed a contract with Debix giving voters free identity protection for the first year and a significantly reduced rate the second year.

“We are honored to extend the Identity Protection Network to the voters of Nashville,” Bo Holland, CEO of Debix, said. “In the past six months, we protected similarly affected citizens on behalf of the state of Ohio and the state of Connecticut and are well prepared for the mission at hand.”

Debix will place fraud alerts with all three credit bureaus and automatically renew them. Using state of the art, patent pending technology, Debix’s automation system receives phone calls from creditors and forwards this call to three customer phone numbers. Customers then hear a recording of their own voice and can approve or disapprove the transaction by use of a personal identification number. This technology even prevents an identity thief who has your cell phone from taking advantage of your credit. Identity Theft insurance is also provided.

Debix has been the most requested provider of Identity Protection by companies, states, and cities who have experienced a data breach. Debix in partnership with LoudSiren, has also made great headway in to the business to consumer market trailing only the market leader Lifelock.

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For months we have been hearing about LifeLock’s $1 Million guarantee. Recently, Debix and LoudSiren have stepped up to address this for all of their customers. The new updates are impressive, clearly meant to match and then exceed the LifeLock offering.

The LoudSiren (Powered by Debix) plan now offers the following protections should you ever have a identity theft issue:

1. A $25,000 AIG Personal Internet & Identity Coverage policy.
2. Additional $1 Million dollar guarantee.

All the details are available at LoudSiren.com.

This is another case where LifeLock’s commitment to high end consumer direct marketing has resulted in better programs for consumers. Regardless of which program you choose these guarantees and insurance plans should more than cover you in the remote possibility that you become a victim of identity theft while enrolled in one of these identity protection plans.

It will be interesting to see if LifeLock will add an insurance program to their current guarantee.

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Brad Stone, in an article just published in the International Herald Tribune indicates some very key investors have picked Debix as their “top dog” in the Identity Theft space. Mr. Stone even tells the story of one investor Gideon Yu (former CFO of YouTube) who personally experienced Identity Theft…and is now backing Debix.

So as consumers, we ask why Debix?

The short answer seems to be a technology. (though we did not verify this directly with Mr. Yu)

Debix offers some leading edge technology that is often overlooked, or perhaps washed out by the high profile marketing by LifeLock. Even the newest addition TrustedID, lines up behind Debix from a technology perspective.

Let’s strip away the marketing for a minute and look at the technology again, and why you should care:

All three companies set your Fraud Alerts at the major credit agencies, TrustedID will even set a Freeze if you want to totally lock things up. All three will insure that the Alerts are reset every 90 days as required.

The difference starts right here -

LifeLock and TrustedID install your phone number into the appropriate places and then presumably check to be sure the Alerts are set - this is great and provides ok ID Theft coverage. If someone tries to open a line of credit in your name, the financial institutions are expected to call your number to confirm. If you have changed your number, or a thief actually has your phone at the time of the credit application, this system can fail - granted, LifeLock’s $1 Million guarantee will be more than enough to cover you, but the fact is, your identity can still be compromised.

Debix takes this to a whole new level - Debix LoudSiren actually places a special phone number in your credit file that rings into the Debix technology, the Debix system then instantly and automatically calls the first number on the contact list you provided at registration, if there is no answer it tries a second, and a third number to reach you. But that’s not all, once the Debix system reaches you, it plays a prerecorded message in your own voice! AND asks you to enter a PIN! Do you see the key differences here?

• Your personal phone numbers are not exposed in your credit file.
• Debix will try up to three different numbers to contact you.
• You will know it’s a valid call from Debix, because it’s your voice.
• Finally, you need to enter your PIN, so even the crook with your cell phone is out of luck.

This is 2-3 layered protection, and it’s also technology with a high “cool factor” with a variety of potential uses.

Kind of a long winded post - but we really want our readers to appreciate the differences, and understand them clearly before selecting an Identity Protection Program.

Oh - and forget the prices mentioned in the article - we have arranged discounts that will get you a year of either Debix (LoudSiren) or LifeLock at well under $100!

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Almost on queue, Debix and Affinion today announced a working partnership sure to enhance the Debix position as a leader in the Identity theft Protection marketplace.

Here’s the quote from the press release which led to our title (emphasis added):

“Given the trust our clients place in us to service their brands and customers, we work with only the very best,” said Tom Rusin, president and chief executive officer of Affinion Group North America.

The things Affinion highlights in the press are the same proactive ID protection features IdentityTheftLabs.com has been pointing out to readers for months:

• Banks and other lenders are requested to check the consumer’s authorization through Debix before opening new credit accounts.
• Debix system uses a list of consumer provided mobile, home or office phone numbers to make immediate contact with you.
• Thieves are thwarted before a new account can be opened in your name. No phone number, no PIN, no new account!
• Your personal phone numbers are kept private from creditors, (a Debix feature not available from LifeLock).

Many of our readers ask, “Is Identity Theft Protection worth it, and does it actually work?”. And finally, the CEO of Debix has stepped up to the plate with real numbers in this final quote from the article:

“Every month, the Debix network stops over 70 identity thieves and authorizes over 10,000 new credit accounts safely,” said Bo Holland, chief executive officer of Debix.

The article is long one you can read it here. The bottom line is that Identity Theft is a real risk that can be largely avoided with the Debix technology, which we offer at a nice discount through our LoudSiren/Debix relationship.

By the way, don’t let the fancy new terms fool you, references to the new Debix term “Instant Authorization”, is same service we offer to our readers at a discount every day. However, we are glad to see Debix calling attention to the feature - it’s our favorite!

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We are encouraged by the feedback so far on the new LoudSiren / Debix roll out. Several readers that have experience with both LifeLock and the Debix system have mentioned the easy sign up process offered by LoudSiren. We have long favored the Debix based technology, but we welcome the simplification LoudSiren has put into process!

With basic personal information on hand you can now be completely setup on the LifeLock or LoudSiren for family and friends without divulging personal information. We are in contact with both companies in an effort to make gifting smooth and confidential for both parties.