ID Watchdog Review [2024]: Identity Theft Protection and Valuable Bonus Features

Created by Equifax, ID Watchdog identity theft protection is a solid service with plenty of identity and credit monitoring features. You’ll get the most out of the Premium subscription, but there are options to suit a variety of households and budgets. It comes standard with features, like up to $2 million in identity theft insurance, and extras like a NordVPN subscription. We dug in to give you a full view of this service and what it has to offer.

ID Watchdog review at a glance

ID Watchdog includes features found in many identity theft prevention products, but it’s the bonuses that make this ID protection service worth it. It monitors your Social Security number and credit score for any unusual behavior. It also provides insurance in case you do have an identity theft incident. There are even options to cover other adults and up to four children in your household.

Most of the control and management features like fraud alerts, credit report lock, and social media monitoring are available only with the Premium plan. This means the less expensive Select plan is just monitoring a few features including your credit and the dark web. You’ll receive the bulk of the features in the Premium plan.

ID Watchdog is a good service for individuals or small families. However, larger families may find that not everyone is covered. In that case, a service like Aura may be a better choice, as it covers unlimited children and adults with its family plan.

ID Watchdog pros and cons

What does ID Watchdog protect against?

ID Watchdog is a comprehensive service that provides alerts and monitoring services for different aspects of your identity. You have the ability to set up dark web alerts, check for registered offenders in your area, prevent child identity theft, and even monitor social media accounts for imposters. And that’s not all. ID Watchdog provides the following services:

Control and manage features

• Credit report lock
• Fraud alerts
• Financial account monitoring
• Social media account monitoring
• Address monitoring
• Registered offender reports
  
• Virtual private network (VPN)
• Password manager

Monitor and detect features

• Credit report monitoring
• Subprime loan block
• Child credit monitoring
• Dark web monitoring
• High-risk transaction monitoring
• Three bureau credit monitoring
• Credit score tracker

Support and restore features

• Up to $1 million in Identity theft insurance
• Identity theft resolution
• 401k/HSA stolen funds reimbursement

ID Watchdog prices and subscriptions

ID Watchdog’s pricing is on par with the competition. The Select plan for an individual is the least expensive option and offers you basic protection and identity theft insurance. Think of it like the greatest hits of identity theft protection — you get the most popular features included in your choice. Purchasing the plan for a year in advance brings the monthly price down a couple bucks to $14.95/mo.

If you want to get in-depth with your ID theft prevention tools, then you’ll want the Premium plan. This offers more options for monitoring, including all three credit reporting bureaus and social media monitoring, which will keep an eye on your accounts for hacking or fraudulent accounts in your name. You also have the option to lock your credit with the three bureaus if you choose this plan.

You can apply the family add-on to either of these plans. This will include another adult and up to four children, which is lower than some of ID Watchdog’s competitors, who include anywhere from 10 to unlimited children. If you’re a big family, you may want to find another service, like Aura, which offers plenty of coverage options for large families.

ID Watchdog plans comparison

ID Watchdog features

While ID Watchdog includes standard features like credit monitoring and fraud detection, it also offers a VPN and password manager through Nord in addition to Bitdefender’s antivirus software. You can find these features from some competitors, but not all. We appreciated that they come from trusted names like Nord and Bitdefender.

Credit monitoring

You’ll find the identity theft protection and credit monitoring guide in the main dashboard and in a separate credit monitoring section. Depending on the plan you choose, you’ll either have a report from one or all three credit reporting bureaus. Additionally, you can request a credit report so you can better understand what is impacting your score and how to catch issues before they become a problem.

Most of it is a set-and-forget kind of service, where you have the ability to check on your credit and your reports but you don’t have to do anything to keep the service working. If you do need to lock your credit, you can do that from the ID Watchdog credit dashboard.

Credit reports and credit scores

If you want to buy a car, rent an apartment, apply for a credit card, or sometimes even snag your dream job, you’ll need a good credit score. Keeping an eye on your credit will help you avoid surprises and disappointments in the future.

Depending on the plan you choose, you’ll be able to check your report on one or all three major credit bureaus. You’ll also have updated VantageScore information daily or monthly.

Identity monitoring

ID Watchdog checks your social media accounts for takeovers or impersonations, alerts you if someone tries to take out a loan in your name, and scans the dark web for your personal information. That’s not all: You can track your medical insurance and government IDs to make sure they aren’t being used for fraudulent activity.

You’ll receive a comprehensive view of your identity and how it’s being used, which can save you time, money, and resources in the future if anyone tries to steal it.

Identity restoration services

Identity restoration services are one of those things you never think you’ll need. However, if you ever find yourself in a situation where your identity has been stolen, this service is invaluable. With ID Watchdog Premium, you’ll receive up to $1 million in ID restoration insurance along with the service’s restoration experts to help you with the remediation of identity theft losses. ID Watchdog provides you with a restoration specialist and services that will help you take back control of your identity.

Our experience with ID Watchdog

We had a lot of issues with signup because we used Safari. This wasn’t indicated to us anywhere on the signup page. Everything was smooth until it took us to the page where we had to enter more information. The site simply would not allow us to create an account. We attempted this first on a Mac using the Safari browser. When we called customer service to help us log in, we were told we could only use a Chrome browser.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to sign into the service on our own. We spent a few hours going back and forth with the extremely friendly customer service representatives who helped us get our account working. Once we were logged in, we were informed it could be up to a month before we saw any credit reporting and up to a few days before the service would identify and alert us to any issues relating to our identity. After a few hours, our credit score did show up in the credit portal, but we still hadn’t received any alerts.

Once our information began loading, we found ID Watchdog to be similar to many of its competitors. We were able to view a list of the registered offenders in our area and see the information ID Watchdog scans for on the dark web. Overall, we found the service to be helpful once it was loaded and working properly.

Does ID Watchdog keep your data safe?

It’s not exactly clear whether or not your data will be shared with third parties. In ID Watchdog’s privacy statement, it states your data is not shared with outside parties for marketing purposes. The statement also says that ID Watchdog adheres to Equifax’s privacy policy. When you go to Equifax’s privacy policy and scroll down to how your data is used, it absolutely says it shares your information for marketing purposes.

This is confusing, so we fired off an email to the privacy officer via the privacy contact form asking for clarification. As of nearly a week later, we’ve yet to receive a response.

ID Watchdog compatibility

ID Watchdog doesn’t let people know that you can’t use the portal on a Safari browser. We had to speak with a customer support representative after trying to initiate our account. She told us we could only use a Google Chrome browser. We couldn’t find this information listed anywhere on the website.

There are options in your portal to download the app from Google Play or Apple’s App Store. You can also find them in the respective stores on your mobile device. The iOS mobile app has a rating of 2 stars, while the Android app has a 3.4-star rating. Like most competitors’ apps, it appears these are buggy and don't work the way they’re supposed to based on customer reviews.

ID Watchdog customer support

Customer support is truly helpful. We had a lot of issues with creating and logging in to our account. We spent a few hours back and forth on the phone with support, and each time the representative was friendly, helpful, and patient with us. When we finally were able to log in, she let us know that there wouldn’t be any information populating in our portals for a while (and no credit information for a month!) because of the nature of the issue we encountered.

The support page also has a button to contact its support by email and a list of FAQs. ID Watchdog's customer care team is available 24/7.

• ID Watchdog phone: 1-800-970-5182
• ID Watchdog email: idwatchdogcustomerservice@equifax.com 

ID Watchdog alternatives

If ID Watchdog doesn’t work for you, there are plenty of alternative identity theft protection services you can consider instead:

• Identity Guard: Identity Guard has three different tiers for individuals and families, so you can find plan options for any budget. It also provides a user-friendly dashboard, making it easy for anyone to jump into id theft protection. 

  Get Identity Guard | Read Our Identity Guard Review

• Norton LifeLock: Of all the identity theft protection services, Norton LifeLock provides the most identity theft insurance with anywhere from $1.05 to $3 million in coverage depending on your plan. It also offers plenty of monitoring features, including dark web, home title, and social media. 

  Get Norton LifeLock | Read Our Norton LifeLock Review

• IDShield: IDShield provides comprehensive features for identity theft protection, credit monitoring, and identity restoration across all of its plans. We were also impressed by IDShield's dedication to keeping our data safe based on its privacy policy. 

  Get IDShield | Read Our IDShield Review

ID Watchdog FAQs

Bottom line: Is ID Watchdog good?

Yes, ID Watchdog identity theft protection is a comprehensive service with many useful features. Whether you’re looking for identity monitoring or want the peace of mind of knowing you have remediation services for identity theft, ID Watchdog will provide both. Even though we experienced problems setting up the service, once we were in, it was comprehensive.

We are a little wary of the confusing privacy policy, since we tried to clarify it and didn’t receive a response. However, the customer support we received when trying to set up our account was excellent, and we trust the representatives to provide a high-quality service to all customers. Despite our rocky start, we found the product easy to use once our account was ready.

If you’re considering an identity theft protection service, ID Watchdog may be a good choice for you. With the added bonus of the VPN, password management services, and the antivirus from Bitdefender, you could potentially cancel other services and bundle it all into this one all-inclusive package. We feel those extra features make it worth the cost.

4.5

AllAboutCookies writers and editors score products based on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence how we rate products.

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On ID Watchdog's website

ID Watchdog

• Comprehensive identity restoration services
• Additional premium features like a VPN and password manager
• Lack of financial account monitoring

Author Details

Mary James

About the Author

Mary is a seasoned cybersecurity writer with over seven years of experience. With a B.S. in Liberal Arts from Clarion University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Point Park University, she educates audiences on scams, antivirus software, and more. Her passion lies in educating audiences on helpful ways to protect their data.