There are lots of agencies out there offering you identity protection. It’s a big business because nowadays you can’t prevent identity theft.

“Scams are just growing tremendously,” says Paige Hanson.

Paige Hanson is Chief of Identity Education at Lifelock and we talked with her today via Facetime.

“If your identity is compromised, we’ll alert you, you’ll say if it’s you or not. If it’s not you, we will actually go through our remediation service and you’ll be assigned an agent who can help you resolve your identity issue.”

It’s no longer “if” your identity is stolen, it’s “when”, and that’s why you want to be prepared and do everything you can. Programs like Lifelock can help.

“Going out and actually looking for identity theft issues and then on the backside, we have the $1 million total service guarantee that if something does happen, we will be able to reimburse you or at least pay up to a million dollars,” says Hanson.

But experts say, don’t put all your identity eggs in one basket.

“I mean they’re good, but you can’t pay $19.95 to Lifelock and then forget about your own finances, they’re not going to take it over for you. They’re going to monitor it, but they can’t catch everything,” says Detective Laura Soulier with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.

You can put fraud alerts on your credit if you think someone’s hacked your information, you can check your bank statements, check your credit report, which you can get for free once a year at Annual Credit Report.com. All these are useful, considering there’s a new scam every day.

“Especially around presidential elections, there are going to be scams asking for your support,” says Hanson.

“There are so many things that go on with your finances that you just have to wrap your head around that this is important to me, and I have to secure it myself,” says Soulier.

It really can be daunting at times making sure you’re doing everything to protect your identity, but that’s why there is help. You can call Lifelock, you can also call Lifeline Consumer Credit Counseling here in Mobile on Cottage Hill Road and they can help point you in the right direction if you feel overwhelmed. For Consumer Credit Counseling, call 251-602-0011. You can reach LifeLock at 1-800-780-7505.