Fair Credit Reporting: 3.4.2.2 Credit Monitoring Is Ineffective in Preventing or Redressing Identity Theft
Credit monitoring services are often marketed as a way to prevent identity theft. Yet they are ineffective in detecting certain forms of identity theft, such as when a thief uses the consumer’s Social Security number, but not the consumer’s name, to obtain credit.333 The identity theft insurance products offered with credit monitoring have very low payouts, because they mostly cover out-of-pocket expenses related to restoring the consumer’s identity.334