The Identity Theft Assistance Center is expanding the availability of its services through a credit monitoring package it developed with Intersections Inc.
Previously, identity theft victims could use the center's services only if they were customers of the financial institutions that fund the nonprofit. The new ITAC Sentinel package carries a monthly fee and includes both credit monitoring and the assistance the center has always provided.
It is available to anyone through the center's Web site and will also be offered by some of the center's member banks.
The center's banks refer their customers to the center to streamline the recovery process after someone learns his identity has been stolen. The center works with victims to contact law enforcement agencies and other financial institutions to document the identity theft and close bogus accounts.
"We think ITAC victim assistance really is the best service for consumers, and our companies have built this system and they use it for their customers," Anne Wallace, the center's president, said in an interview Wednesday. The nonprofit has assisted 35,000 people since its founding in 2003.
Working with Intersections, of Chantilly, Va., to offer the package "helps extend ITAC's reach to more consumers," she said. "As long as there are victims, I want ITAC to be there to help them."
The package, to be announced this week, has three versions: the standard Sentinel, which includes a credit report from Equifax Inc. of Atlanta; Sentinel Plus, which includes credit reports from all three bureaus; and Sentinel Premium, which includes the reports and monitors public records such as liens for possible fraud that does not typically appear on a credit report.
"This kind of crime can be very creative and pervasive, and we are, as a society, figuring out how best to detect it," Ms. Wallace said.
Avivah Litan, a vice president and research director at Gartner Inc., a market research company in Stamford, Conn., said not all consumers are keen on the idea of paying for credit monitoring services. Many are satisfied with the zero-liability guarantees they get from their banks and the free credit report they are allowed to request once a year, Ms. Litan said.
"Consumers have wizened up to credit report monitoring," and are aware of the services' limitations, she said. A survey she conducted last year found "there were more people dropping off than signing on," she said.
The Premium version of Sentinel would be especially appealing to those consumers who are willing to pay for a credit monitoring service, and the public records monitoring feature makes that version "five times more valuable" than the standard Sentinel service, she said.
