LifeLock in the News

LifeLock and Office Depot Join Forces to Protect Consumers from Identity Theft

Early last week, LifeLock, the leader in proactive identity theft security, announced its partnership with Office Depot, a premier global provider of office supplies and services. The alliance has resulted in Office Depot becoming a provider of LifeLock’s innovative, identity theft prevention service, and the office store has announced it expects the LifeLock product to be available at its 1,200 North American locations and online stores by the end of this year.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States, accounting for over 50 billion dollars in stolen funds and goods every year. Despite the growing need for consumer protection from fraud, few identity theft services have been able to offer Americans significant protection. When LifeLock entered the industry in 2005, consumers finally gained access to a comprehensive service that specializes in preventing identity theft. Unlike credit reporting agencies, LifeLock’s unique service is able to detect and intercept fraud before it occurs, proactively protecting individuals and businesses from all forms of fraud. The most exceptional feature of the LifeLock service is its million dollar guarantee, which ensures customers they are protected from having to pay for losses or damages caused by fraud.

The LifeLock service works by setting and automatically renewing security alerts on consumers’ personal information with the three major credit bureaus and ChexSystems, forcing banks and credit companies to verify with LifeLock’s clients whether they want to open a new account or make changes in their records before the companies can legally approve anything. This first step is the most important in terms of giving consumers back the control over who uses their identities. LifeLock also strives to restrict who has access to its clients’ personal information by removing its members’ names from circulating junk mail lists and pre-approved credit offers, protecting their clients’ information from a variety of risks, including computer hacking and mail fraud. The private, Tempe, Arizona-based firm’s objective is to render consumers’ information worthless to everyone except the rightful owner, bankrupting the identity theft industry with their groundbreaking service.

Chuck Rubin is the President of the North American retail division of Office Depot, and he has expressed to the press his support of the partnership between his corporation and LifeLock. Following the company’s announcement of the relationship, Rubin stated: “LifeLock is the type of breakthrough product that is not only very relevant to individual consumers today, but also offers a much-needed service for small businesses with just a few employees and larger companies with hundreds or thousands of associates.” Rubin went on to state the projected impact the affiliation with LifeLock would have on Office Depot patrons, saying: “With this new relationship with LifeLock, we will be bringing our customers an essential security solution with the convenience, value and service they’ve come to expect from Office Depot.” LifeLock’s Co-Founder and CEO Todd Davis also commented on the impending integration of the two companies’ service strategies, announcing: “We’re very pleased to partner with Office Depot to provide their customers with access to the security tools that can safeguard their personal, business and employee information from identity theft. With LifeLock, consumers and businesses can rest assured that they are protected from identity theft.”

Since 2003, the FTC has reported a total of 27.3 million Americans as victims of identity theft, with 9.9 million cases of identity theft reported in just the last year. Financial institutions and businesses have endured the most losses due to identity theft, totaling 48 billion dollars in the last year, while the FTC has reported consumer losses at 5 billion dollars in out-of-pocket expenses. In order to protect businesses from the inevitable financial setbacks caused by identity theft, such as loss of productivity while employees deal with identity theft problems, LifeLock offers every size business a solution to identity theft, which secures employees’ personal information and protects businesses from losing valuable time and resources that would otherwise be used to resolve lingering credit problems. In addition, LifeLock also offers a protection plan for individuals, both adults and children, to prevent them from becoming victims of identity theft.

Once a person’s identity is stolen, it can take weeks, months, or even years to fully resolve the aftermath of the theft, which results in loss of productivity and concentration at the office. The problems associated with fraud are only compounded in a corporate setting when multiple employees’ identities, business records, and expense accounts are compromised, and LifeLock and Office Depot’s purpose in joining forces to combat identity theft is to protect businesses from the crippling effects of identity theft. For now, the services Office Depot will be offering to its clientele remain undefined, but consumers can expect more product details within the next few weeks.

About LifeLock

Located in a secure facility in the southwest, LifeLock offers a comprehensive identity theft prevention service that is guaranteed to render private information useless to identity thieves. Backed by namely two prominent venture capital firms (Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers and Bessemer Venture Partners), LifeLock has recently come to the attention of American Business Awards, which honored the emergent company with the Best Radio Advertising Campaign and nominated the firm for the Best New Product/Service, as well as the Best New Company in May 2007.

About Office Depot

Headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida, Office Depot became incorporated in 1986, and has since risen to become the most ubiquitous office products and services company in the world. The company’s average sales amount to 15.4 billion dollars, with 4.7 billion attributed to online sales, and the firm employs nearly 52,000 people in 43 different countries. To date, Office Depot has 1,186 company-owned and operated stores located in the United States and Canada, and 369 company-owned, franchised, or licensed stores located outside North America, all of which service one of the world’s largest customer bases with a committed staff of associates.