With this extra layer of protection, breached organizations offering ProtectMyID to their affected customers, employees and patients are providing a comprehensive product in the market for any kind of data breach, including exposure of Social Security numbers or credit-card and debit-card numbers.
Members of Experian’s ProtectMyID can now download the BillGuard mobile app and access both their ProtectMyID alerts and BillGuard features within the BillGuard mobile app. Named one of the Best Apps of 2014, BillGuard is available for download for iPhone and Android devices via the Apple App StoreSM or Google Play store.
Retail data breaches have affected millions of consumers, and the cost of credit-card and debit-card fraud rose to $11bn in 2013, up $3bn since 2012.
Experian Consumer Protection vice-president Michael Bruemmer said: "While Experian’s ProtectMyID’s current surveillance for various fraud types are one of the best ways to monitor for identity theft and fraud, we wanted to expand our product to address a wider variety of breaches.
"A breached organization should offer the best protection available as a step toward rebuilding a positive reputation with its customers. We are confident consumers will be very impressed with BillGuard’s data breach alerts and crowd-sourced card monitoring features along with the ProtectMyID benefits that are now all accessible in one place."
BillGuard CEO Yaron Samid said: "Data breaches have become inevitable and we hear the same recommendation every time: consumers must vigilantly monitor their financial accounts and report suspicious activity immediately.
"BillGuard’s data-driven mission is to help consumers with that daunting task by making it extremely easy to check your accounts, and we’re proud to partner with Experian, a leading information services company, to bring much needed protection and peace of mind to millions of rightfully anxious cardholders."
The Experian’s ProtectMyID active fraud surveillance and identity theft resolution suite includes a free copy of the member’s Experian credit report, daily credit monitoring with alerts to new inquiries or newly opened accounts, and Internet scanning, which continually monitors online sources where compromised credit/debit-card and Social Security numbers are found, traded or sold.
Complementing these benefits, the BillGuard mobile app alerts cardholders of suspicious transactions that have posted to their credit/debit-cards and bank accounts. Additional features include card-location alerts, data-breach monitoring and alerts, spend tracking and analytics, and card concierge through which cardholders can resolve billing inquiries and disputes with merchants directly from within the BillGuard app.
