How it began for me...... JUNE 13, 2018 About 7 years ago I was watching a news broadcast and heard about a data breach at the State of Utah’s Dept. I remember thinking to myself, oh what a drag to be one of the tens of thousands of people whose personally identifiable information had been exposed. Just 2 weeks later, another news story about the same data breach, detailing the release of informat
ion of people who have never received housing assistance or food stamps. Why was their information in this particular state data base??? Turns out there is a provision in the law that will allow your health insurance company to apply for State Medicaid on your behalf and never tell you about it. Also turns out MY information was released in the breach!!! Never have I ever had any assistance of any kind. Made me mad and fearful at the same time. The state of Utah provided me 1 year of free credit monitoring. Approximately a year later the U of U med center had a data breach. This time both mine and my wife's information was exposed. And yet again the state offered me and my wife another year of free credit monitoring. There is a reason why its free! Made me feel better... After that last year of free monitoring expired the company that was contracted with the state, offered to cover me and my wife for $19.99 a month, coverage for my kids would be an additional cost. I never signed up for their offer. I let the monitoring go away. I was fine, nothing had happened no ID theft issues occurred, nothing out of the ordinary. All was good, then it happened. My wife was informed that her social security number was being used by 5 different people in 3 different states GA. and then the fear of loans or phones or condos or speeding tickets from other states crept into my thoughts. The what if??? What would that cost me in terms of credit or employment opportunities, loss of time and money! 76% of ID theft victims will have legal issues. Its the only crime, where you are guilty until you prove your innocent. Then a friend of mine introduced me to IDShield. The monitoring coupled with complete ID restoration by the only licensed investigators in the industry is peace of mind. I also signed up for LegalShield to cover my whole family. That's the service that provides access to attorney’s across the nation. After some time of paying for this protection the need for an attorney arrived in the form of getting my money back. This money was owed to me by a physician group. I had paid a bill in full that was not my responsibility. After being notified of this error by my insurance company I contacted this physician group to get my full refund. For 5 months I had to explain, why they owed me. I will not bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I had not even considered contacting my local law firm for Utah members about my plight until my friend reminded me about my protection plans. I called them, had an attorney on the phone in 45 minutes. Explained my situation faxed an EOB and a statement from my account to the local law firm and in 4 days I had my check in my mail box! Want to know how much that cost me? I will tell you, $0.00 its one of the many services included in your membership. Seriously how stupid did I feel. It was too easy. Its like muscle you never knew you had. I sleep good at night knowing that my entire family is protected. And now I help to protect and empower people just like me. I would like to help and empower you too.
