Monitoring children’s social networking activities and more are part of a new identity theft monitoring service being offered to the 428,000 members of the $4.6 billion VyStar Credit Union in Jacksonville, Fla.
The suite of services from Arizona-based IDentity Theft 911 include LifeStages Identity Management Systems, which is at no cost and helps members when they believe there has been an identity theft as well as FraudScout and SocialScout that monitor credit reports for possible identity thefts and carry nominal charges
FraudScout focuses on adult credit bureau reports and credit information while SocialScout focuses on social networks of minor children ages 9-17 and alerts parents when possibly compromising information is captured or shared on these networks as well as other threats.
“Designed for kids age 9-17, SocialScout is a groundbreaking online Parental Intelligence System that helps you monitor and quickly analyze your child’s social networking and mobile phone activity–keeping you informed of predators, cyber bullies and reputation-damaging behavior,” VyStar wrote in a brochure about the service.
“SocialScout provides comprehensive social network, Smartphone email and text message monitoring for BlackBerry and Android devices. It can even help you translate the text messages they might send or receive. Applications supported include Facebook, Twitter and MySpace,” the credit union said.
VyStar is the first credit union to deploy SocialScout, IDentity Theft 911 said.
The LifeStages Identity Management service is both an educational program to keep credit union members aware of when their personal information can be most vulnerable and a concierge-style service that will help members resolve problems should there be a case of identity theft.
“When a member calls into us with the belief that their identity had been compromised, they get our full attention and our staff stays with them through the process until resolution,” said Identity Theft 911 co-founder and chairman Adam Levin.
Levin said his staff handles required forms, preparation to letters of explanation to the credit bureaus and other details while members still need to read, sign and post the letters.
“The goal is take a process which is stressful and complicated and make it simpler and more understandable,” Levin said.
