Although I kept hearing about identity theft it I never really gave it much thought. With all the hard work it takes to maintain good credit you'd think I'd be more concerned with protecting it from thieves.

It wasn't until a close friend of mind had her identity stolen that I saw how insidious a thing identity theft can be. Her whole world had turned upside down. It took over a year of nothing but hassle, after hassle, after hassle to get her life back together.

Just imagine how stressful this must be. You are at risk of losing everything if you become a victim of identity theft: and most don't realize they are a victim until it is too late.

While my friend was going through this ordeal I heard an advertisement for a company called LifeLock, which calls itself The identity protection company. The CEO of LifeLock gave out his social security number during this radio spot, which made me sit up and take notice.

Now that, that is confidence. Or insanity.

I was intrigued. I decided I needed to find out which.

Right on the company website is the SSN of Todd Davis (the CEO of LifeLock) there for all to view. Certainly, this is a man who stands by his product.

Mr. Davis even backs LifeLock's services with a one million dollar guarantee!

The website makes the following promises:

Whatever it takes, LifeLock will make sure it gets done and they'll spend as much as a million bucks to make sure you're taken care of.

I enrolled right away upon finding the cost of this service was a mere $10 per month. I felt better at once knowing I had this caliber of protection behind me. LifeLock even requested fraud alerts for me (I wasn't even aware such a thing existed!).

Fraud alerts are very handy. Once creditors are established with the credit bureaus, they must verify your identity before they can open lines of credit in your name, issue cards or increase the limits on your existing ones. This is a good protective measure from the risks of identity theft.

Fraud alerts can be a real life saver. Creditors have to verify your identity before doing anything that would affect your credit for instance, issue a card in your name.

LifeLock also notified me that they had the credit bureaus send me my credit reports, another perk for members.If anyone tries to take any action affecting my credit, I am contacted by phone to verify first. This really puts my mind at ease. My wife and I used to spend whole afternoons just shredding documents containing our personal information. Now that we're protected by LifeLock, we don't have to worry about it.

If you're still unprotected from identity theft, please give LifeLock a try. It will be worth the 30 cents a day they charge for peace of mind alone, even if no one tries to steal your identity. And if you do ever face the nightmare of identity theft, you'll be even gladder you made the right decision and signed up.