LifeLock and credit bureau TranUnion have come to an agreement that streamlines some of LifeLock’s identity theft protection measures. As LifeLock CEO Todd Davis put it, “protecting customers just got easier.”

Having TransUnion’s cooperation will make it hassle-free for LifeLock to initiate and renew fraud alerts, and obtain credit reports for their clients. The enhanced relationship will also make it easier for LifeLock to place “opt out” orders on their clients’ to keep marketers from calling and sending pre-approved credit offers.

Fraud alerts and credit report reviews are considered the foundation–or bare minimum–of any identity theft protection program, whether it’s implemented by the consumer or  by an identity theft protection service like LifeLock. But accomplishing just those basic efforts hasn’t always been as easy as it should be.

Experian, another credit bureau with a competing credit monitoring product, even blocked LifeLock’s phone calls so they couldn’t place their customers’ fraud alerts there. Then, they filed a lawsuit against LifeLock claiming they were taking advantage of consumers by charging them for fraud alerts, etc.

After an investigation, a federal court has since ruled that much of the Experian complaint is a bunch of hooey.

The irony is that Experian has been reprimanded TWICE by the Federal Trade Commission for misleading consumers by advertising their $79 credit monitoring service with a “freecreditreport.com” website and “free credit report.com” commercials. Experian is being investigated by the Florida Attorney General’s office for their misleading advertisements.

By comparison, the website at LifeLock.com has the following text:

• “Some of what we do, you can do yourself for free. The difference is that the only thing we think about is how to protect your Identity. Think of it this way: all of us can change our own oil, but most of us have it done by specialists. We’d like to think that what we do is more complicated than changing oil, but you get the idea.
• Here’s what we do: First, we ask the credit bureaus to set free fraud alerts on your behalf …
• Second, unless your circumstances change and you tell us not to, every 90 days or so we ask the credit bureaus to do it again. You can do this for free if you’d prefer, but we make sure it gets done and that it gets done right. That’s where the oil change analogy we were talking about kicks in.
• Third, we request that your name be removed from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists and we keep making the requests as they expire. Statistics show that this is one of the many ways that thieves hijack identities …  Many of our members tell us that this alone is worth the price. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, you can do this for free, but why not let us do it for you?
• Fourth, we order your free credit reports on your behalf from the major credit bureaus and they are sent directly to you. We do this every year. You can also do this yourself for free (Pennzoil anyone?).”

That’s misleading? Really?

This new agreement between LifeLock and TransUnion means that when LifeLock is ready to place fraud alerts, request credit reporst and “opt out” for their customers, TransUnion will be their go-to credit bureau, and then TransUnion sends the requests on to the other bureaus.

Protecting customers just got A LOT easier.