ProtectMyID membership from BA- take or leave?

pavane

So the ever failing organisation known as BA have emailed me to tell me my details were stolen when they were hacked. They are giving me free ProtectMyID membership which includes:
1. Unlimited access to your Experian Credit Report.
2. Credit Alerting – an email or text to let you know when certain changes happen on your Experian Credit Report, such as the addition of a new credit search.
3. Access to an Identity Theft Resolution service if you do become a victim of fraud, where you’ll have a dedicated case worker who will support you in resolving fraud that has occurred.
4. If you are at higher risk of fraud, Experian can add protective Cifas registration to your credit report which can help prevent credit being taken in your name. The Cifas Protective Registration service places a flag alongside your name and personal details in the National Fraud Database. Companies and organisations who are signed up as members of the database will see you’re at risk and take extra steps to protect you.


Is this worth taking up or should I not bother? Experian Credit report, I was under the impression this could both be had for free and was rather a useless measure. CIFAS I've only heard about on these forums as being an obstacle to people being able to open accounts. I suppose the resolution service may be helpful but at this stage I have no confidence in anything BA sends me. What would you do?

Ben8282

If by BA you mean British Airways this would appear a rather strange product for them to be offering. I would ignore the e-mail if I were you.

[Deleted User]

Found this which 'suggests' that it may be genuine if you've made a recent booking with them. After 12 months you would presumably have to pay if you didn't cancel.

https://millionmilesecrets.com/news/identity-monitoring/

Missus_Hyde

pavane wrote: »

So the ever failing organisation known as BA have emailed me to tell me my details were stolen when they were hacked. They are giving me free ProtectMyID membership which includes:
1. Unlimited access to your Experian Credit Report.
2. Credit Alerting – an email or text to let you know when certain changes happen on your Experian Credit Report, such as the addition of a new credit search.
3. Access to an Identity Theft Resolution service if you do become a victim of fraud, where you’ll have a dedicated case worker who will support you in resolving fraud that has occurred.
4. If you are at higher risk of fraud, Experian can add protective Cifas registration to your credit report which can help prevent credit being taken in your name. The Cifas Protective Registration service places a flag alongside your name and personal details in the National Fraud Database. Companies and organisations who are signed up as members of the database will see you’re at risk and take extra steps to protect you.


Is this worth taking up or should I not bother? Experian Credit report, I was under the impression this could both be had for free and was rather a useless measure. CIFAS I've only heard about on these forums as being an obstacle to people being able to open accounts. I suppose the resolution service may be helpful but at this stage I have no confidence in anything BA sends me. What would you do?

I'd be inclined to take advantage of the ProtectMyID; I had a similar thing when Charter Savings Bank managed to lose a lot of their customers' data including mine (sadly this seems to be the norm these days.....everybody's doing it! )

I found it quite useful (particularly as I didn't have to pay for it for a year) and then when the free year finished, I joined the MSE Experian Credit Report.

wanderlusthols

I too was the victim of BA's data breach. I can say with confidence...sign up to protect my ID!

Not too long after my data was breached, some lovely individual opened a credit card in my name and spent £2500... a coincidene, who knows?! I had signed up to protectmyID and it was through their alerts that I became aware of this. They opened up an investigation and worked with myself and the bank in question to close the account down. No issues, it was all taken care of within 24 hours thank goodness.

One piece of advice. Avoid the CIFAS protective registration they suggest you get if you are a victim of credit card fraud. I paid for this and then decided it would be a good time to change mobile service providers. Needless to say, my credit check was declined because of the CIFAS alert. Despite the fact I know it to show 'victim of fraud' I have been declined a contract with Vodafone. Apparently if the system flags it, they don have to dig a little deeper and assess the type of alert, they can simply decline you.

So in a nutshell; yes to protectmyID, HELL NO to CIFAS! You will pay the price of never changing mobile phone providers.

pavane

wanderlusthols wrote: »

I too was the victim of BA's data breach. I can say with confidence...sign up to protect my ID!

Not too long after my data was breached, some lovely individual opened a credit card in my name and spent £2500... a coincidene, who knows?! I had signed up to protectmyID and it was through their alerts that I became aware of this. They opened up an investigation and worked with myself and the bank in question to close the account down. No issues, it was all taken care of within 24 hours thank goodness.

One piece of advice. Avoid the CIFAS protective registration they suggest you get if you are a victim of credit card fraud. I paid for this and then decided it would be a good time to change mobile service providers. Needless to say, my credit check was declined because of the CIFAS alert. Despite the fact I know it to show 'victim of fraud' I have been declined a contract with Vodafone. Apparently if the system flags it, they don have to dig a little deeper and assess the type of alert, they can simply decline you.

So in a nutshell; yes to protectmyID, HELL NO to CIFAS! You will pay the price of never changing mobile phone providers.

Thanks but I am worried this may introduce false positives like the scenario with your phone. I had a look going through a test run to sign up and couldn't see a CIFAS section to opt out of.


I have since had my card replaced but of course with my name, address and who knows what (BA can't confirm anything) there is the chance someone could open something new.

[Deleted User]

I had 12 months of ProtectMyID for free from my employer a few years ago when they had a data breech. Free ProtectMyID subs seem to be standard practice when this happens.

Penelopa.Pitstop

I signed up to this, since I resigned from Experian and service is free for 12 months. It's really up to you. You're not getting protective CIFAS by default.

I already replaced one of the card, I used on BA and most of my cards were changed after their fraud came to light. But now SPG says that they had leak of personal data, so ...