IDShield Review: Best Identity Protection Plan or Scam?

Protecting your private information and identity can seem almost impossible nowadays. The scariest part is that you’ll probably never know someone has stolen your identity until it’s too late. But companies like IDShield claim they can provide identity theft, suspicious activity and help resolve cases on our behalf. Perhaps that sounds too good to be true and that’s why you’re going through IDShield Reviews.

Since we’re all about helping you avoid scams, we would strongly suggest you read this IDShield Review carefully to determine whether the service is worth your time and money. 

Who Owns IDShield?

IDShield is a subsidiary of Pre-Paid Legal Services and identity theft protection provider LegalShield. IDShield was founded by Harland Stonecipher in 1972 and they are headquartered in Ada, Oklahoma, U.S. at the time of writing this review. 

How Does IDShield Work?

IDShield basically offers identity theft protection, monitoring and restoration services to its members. They also have full-time licensed private investigators that members can contact at any time to follow up on suspected fraud and identity theft. So once you sign up IDShield continuously conducts identity theft and credit monitoring and reports suspicious activity relating to your personal information including credit cards, banking and credit facilities, online activity and so on. IDShield will then assist you solve the problem in the most efficient way possible. 

IDShield Identity Theft Protection Features

There are a couple of features that make up the IDShield identity theft protection and identity restoration service including:

Credit Monitoring – This service enables them to conduct credit monitoring, credit score reporting and identity theft restoration services. It also provides alerts about changes related to ID theft and fraudulent activity and a credit report. There are two plans in this service; 1-bureau and 3-bureau monitoring. 

Social Security Number & Dark Web Monitoring – If there are security alerts related to your social security number especially on the dark web, their investigators run advanced social number Skip Trace searches to reveal hidden fraud and identity theft. This service also monitors the dark web for risk factors related to your personal and credit card information. 

Public Records & Court Records Monitoring – Apparently this service monitors 34 different pieces of personally identifiable information across millions of public records. They also offer extensive identity theft protection of your information over hundreds of millions of criminal records including county courts, departments of corrections, and court records at both local and federal levels. 

Mobile App – IDShield's app is available for both Android and iOS devices. You can contact IDShield's licensed private investigators directly from the app.

Other IDShield features include payday loan monitoring, username and password monitoring, address change monitoring, child monitoring (family plan), sex offender monitoring, social media monitoring, telecom monitoring and high-risk application monitoring. You can view the full list here of all the identity theft protection service offerings.

How Much Does IDShield Cost?

At the time of this review, IDShield has four service plans – two for individuals and two for family. 

• 1-Bureau Individual plan – $12.95 per month or $155.40 annually – This service plan has all the basic features IDShield offers in addition to Transunion credit monitoring. 

• 1-Bureau Family Plan – $25.95 per month or $311.40 annually. – This service plan includes all the IDSHield features, as well as Transunion credit monitoring. It covers the primary member, a spouse and up to 10 dependents, 

• 3-Bureau Individual Plan – $17.95 per month or $215.40 annually – This service plan includes all the IDShield identity protection features and Transunion, Equifax and Experian credit monitoring. 

• 3-Bureau Family Plan – $32.95 per month or $395.40 annually – Covers the primary member, a spouse and up to 10 dependents. Transunion, Equifax and Experian credit report, credit score and credit monitoring are included as well. 

IDShield's 1-Bureau individual and family plans come with a $1 million identity theft protection insurance and $2 million for the family option. The 3-Bureau Individual and Family plans also have the same $1 million and $2 million insurance covers respectively. in addition to credit monitoring and credit score tracking from the three bureaus. These services will cover the member and a spouse but doesn’t extend to the dependants. 

How Do I Get Started with IDShield?

IDShield offers a 30-day trial upon sign up. You can go here to get started. You’ll first answer a couple of personal information questions that detail your name, DOB, current address, your Social Security Number and so on. You can then pick an IDShield plan, enter your credit card info and start your trial. You can also feed in your personal information into the app's profile area and link your social media apps as well.

How good is IDShield?

IDShield does have its fair share of good and bad. IDShield does offer comprehensive identity monitoring, alerts and restoration services. However, it doesn't offer computer and mobile device monitoring which can be crucial for social media monitoring. But it's probably the most affordable plan if you have a large family, as their family plan covers a household of 12 family members in total.

IDShield Complaints

So far everything sounds good. But as you know, nothing’s perfect under the sun. There are a few areas IDShield could improve as you’ll read about below. 

Some common features are not included – Unfortunately IDShield doesn’t offer computer and mobile device monitoring, medical identity theft protection monitoring and a credit score and credit report simulator that helps predict how financial choices may affect your credit score and credit report. These are essential credit services provided by most other identity theft protection services.

You can get more features for less money – You’re better off doing your homework before going all in with IDShield. Members have claimed there are better identity protection and identity restoration companies with more comprehensive plans than IDShield. Well that comes as a no-surprise since they lack some really basic features like computer and mobile device monitoring which are really important especially while conducting social media monitoring. 

Is IDShield Legitimate?

Well IDShield is not a scam. That’s the bottom line. In addition, IDShield's parent company has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. IDShield family plan covers up to 10 dependents which is an impressive number compared to most other similar services. But IDShield won’t secure information in your computer and smartphone which is a huge letdown. However, they seem to thrive in dark web monitoring and social media monitoring, as well. So overall IDShield may not be as sophisticated as other services like Identity Guard or IDNotify, but IDShield definitely a service worth checking out especially if you have a large family. 

What Identity Theft Protection is Best?

Identity theft protection services have their pros and cons alike. Choosing the best one for you depends on the services that are important to you. While most companies offer pretty much the same services, the most important factors to consider include the cost, insurance amount (usually $1 million), the features, customer service efficiency and their refund policy. Other factors are pretty much standard across the board.

Well, that’s my review. Would you trust the service to protect your personal information against identity theft? Feel free to chime in your thoughts in the comments section below. If you still need more questions answered, you can visit their FAQs section here. 

Until next time

Eddy “with a Y”