ID-protection ads come back to bite pitchman

to other people in his name because of the widespread availability of his personal information — and because of what he described as the flimsy mechanisms in place to report that kind of fraud. Paris noted that LifeLock charges $10 a month to set fraud alerts with credit bureaus, even though consumers can do it themselves for free. Davis, however, stands by his company and his advertising gimmick, which has appeared in newspapers and on billboards, radio, and MTV. He even broadcasts it by bullhorn on walking tours through crowded downtowns. “There’s nothing on my actual credit report about uncollected funds, no outstanding tickets or warrants or anything,” he said. “There’s nothing to indicate my identity has been successfully compromised other than the one instance. I know I’m taking a slightly higher risk. But I’ll take my risk for the tremendous benefit we’re bringing to society and to consumers.”

The lawsuits, for which Paris is seeking class-action status, highlight the fundamental limits on how much security identity-theft companies can provide. Companies like LifeLock can help guard against only certain types of financial fraud by helping consumers set up alerts with credit bureaus, which inform them when someone tries to open a new line of credit or boost their credit limit to finance a buying binge, for example. The services do not guard against many types of identity theft such as use of a stolen Social Security number on a job application or for medical services, or even the instance of an arrestee giving police a stolen Social Security number to shield his own identity. LifeLock is also being sued in Arizona over its $1 million service guarantee, which the plaintiffs claim is misleading because it only covers a defect in LifeLock’s service, and in California by the Experian credit bureau. Experian accuses LifeLock of deceiving consumers about the breadth of its protection and abusing the system for attaching fraud alerts to credit reports. Security experts say complaints about the company reinforce the time-honored wisdom of keeping your Social Security number secret. “There’s been a lot of marketing, a lot of hype about LifeLock,” said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. “The question is, ‘How much protection does it really buy you?’” Stephens said that “There is no company that can guarantee they can protect you (completely) against identity theft. Absolutely nobody can do that.”