CompleteID Identity Theft Protection Review

Tired of sifting through Costco CompleteID reviews trying to decide if it’s the right Identity Theft Protection to keep you and your family safe online?

If I’ve done my job, this review will bring it to a close.

Costco members know they’re getting quality products at a great price. And when it comes to Identity Theft Protection, you don’t even have to buy in bulk. But hey, what’s stopping you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEIIWaNX4Pc

While CompleteID is not quite as good as Aura, it’s definitely one of the acceptable options of the seven Identity Theft Protection solutions I’ve used. It checks all the boxes in many of the major areas, and where it comes up short I think it is a compromise you could live with.

But before you sign up, check out my links for the latest deals and recommendations, whenever I find something new I’ll make sure to update that for you.

Quick Overview on Customer Support

My first gut-check with any Identity Theft Protection solution is their customer support, and CompleteID passes in flying colors.

I’m talking about knowledgeable agents who understand their customers and go out of their way to get to the root of your issues.

Why do I even care?

My experiences with the most recognized brand in Identity Theft Protection have been awful, and when you’re flippin’ your ish because your savings got drained, you don’t wanna be dealing with that. CompleteID has you covered.

Setting Up CompleteID

To get up and running with CompleteID you input the personal information that you want to monitor, and it’ll send you an alert if it comes across your information on the dark web.

Now I gotta say, CompleteID was a bit slow to the punch on pulling up my existing dark web alerts when I signed up. Most of the other Identity Theft Protection solutions sent me dark web alerts within a day or two of signing up, but with CompleteID it took a little bit. That’s something to keep in mind if you decide to enroll with them.

The other thing worth noting is that the extent of information they allow you to monitor is a bit limiting. The biggest thing is that you can only monitor 4 email addresses, which is just not enough for me.

Beyond that you can monitor your social security number, phone numbers, your driver’s license and passport numbers, medical ID numbers, bank and credit card numbers, and membership card numbers.

If that sounds like a lot to you, well, it’s not. Many of the other companies like Aura for example allow you to monitor more types of information, and often more of each type than you can with CompleteID.

It’s not the end of the world, but again something to keep in mind.

And just how good is CompleteIDs dark web monitoring?

I’ll show you what it turns up for dark web alerts for me in just a bit here. But real quick, I want to go over the rest of CompleteIDs monitoring capabilities.

Features of CompleteID

CompleteID doesn’t offer any public web monitoring or opt-out requests, but this isn’t a standard offering. Most companies I’ve used don’t do this, and the only companies that do it right are Aura and Identity Guard.

So if you want to cut down on robocalls and junk mail, you’ll have to take it upon yourself to contact data brokers directly to submit opt-out requests.

Mail Change Alerts and Criminal Record Monitoring

And while CompleteID doesn’t monitor utility accounts, they do offer mail change alerts and criminal record monitoring, so if someone uses your name when they get arrested, you’ll get an alert.

Credit Monitoring

CompleteID includes 3-bureau credit monitoring on all their plans, so you’ll get an alert if anyone tries to open a new account in your name.

All plans also include monthly VantageScores and annual credit reports from all three bureaus, as well as a credit lock to prevent unwanted inquiries with the click of a button. This puts them at the head of the pack in terms of credit monitoring alongside Aura.

Transaction Monitoring

Like most Identity Theft Protection companies out there, CompeteID’s plans include transaction monitoring. If you link your bank accounts and credit cards you can set transaction thresholds and receive notifications of any charges that are over the limit.

And if it seems like a fraudulent charge, you can get to the bottom of it right away.

Extra Protection Features

Some other nice perks of CompleteID include safe browsing features, like a VPN, a password manager, and safe browser. While I think dedicated solutions for these will serve you better, if you don’t have them already CompleteID will help get you up and running.

Social Media Account Monitoring

CompleteID also allows you to monitor your social media accounts so that you can get notifications if your activity starts to violate community guidelines. Usually this would be indicative of someone getting access to your accounts and using them for malicious purposes.

This is another nice touch that’s definitely not a standard offering with other Identity Theft Protection solutions.

Dark Web Monitoring

So now for the fun part—drum roll, please!

Let’s see what CompleteID turned up for me on the dark web.

Typically I monitor all of the same personal information across all of the Identity Theft Protection solutions I use.

However, since CompleteID only allows me to monitor four email addresses, I made sure the ones I left out didn’t return any dark web hits across all the other platforms.

Luckily for me, I don’t have anything too serious leaked out there on the dark web—at least not yet. For the most part we’re looking at login credentials from various websites that have been affected by breaches.

In total, CompleteID returns 14 dark web alerts for my personal information, and of those 14, 8 of them are unique.

The dark web alerts are for login credentials from websites you probably know like Adobe, MySpace, and Canva. There’s even a leaked password from one of my gmail accounts which explains all that weird stuff I was seeing a few years back.

I’ve long since changed my password, but take it from me if you haven’t already—don’t use the same password across multiple websites. You’ll save yourself a minor or major headache down the road.

The remaining dark web alerts are from compilations, which is when someone graciously collects all the login credentials they can find in one central location on the dark web to make life even easier for identity thieves.

Dark Web Monitoring: How does CompleteID compare with other Identity Theft Protection solutions?

Well, it could be worse. IdentityIQ turns up absolutely nothing for my personal information on the dark web, and Norton’s renowned LifeLock turns up a total of only 8 dark web alerts. While all these hits are unique, LifeLock doesn’t even find my leaked gmail credentials. Tsk tsk.

But it could also be better. Aura turns up a total of 18 dark web alerts, 9 of which are unique. And IdentityForce turns up 20 dark web alerts, 10 of which are unique.

Note that dark web monitoring isn’t a perfect science, and usually each of the different Identity Theft Solutions are finding some hits that the others aren’t. While CompleteID could perform better in this department, they’re finding enough that it’s OK by me.

Now while the quality of a company’s monitoring is important, dark web monitoring in particular, you also need to consider what they offer for threat resolution.

Threat Resolution

We’ve already discussed that CompleteID has an excellent customer support team, so you know you’re starting off on the right foot on the day that you truly need their help.

And in the event that you’re a victim of identity theft, CompleteIDs plans include a designated restoration specialist to help you get back on track as painlessly as possible.

In terms of financial backing, CompleteIDs plans come with up to $1M in identity theft insurance, which is pretty much the standard and baseline offering across all of the companies I’ve used.

There are a couple of companies that offer more, and the only one that I think is worth it is Aura—they offer $1M in identity theft insurance per adult, which is up to $5M on their family plan.

Plans

Worth noting is that at most you can protect two adults and five children with CompleteID, whereas with Aura you can protect up to 5 adults and unlimited children.

And when it comes to price, it is a bit difficult to compare across companies because most use a convoluted tiered plan structure, and each tier unlocks a different set of features.

Like Aura, this is not the case with CompleteID. Their plans are straightforward and comprehensive. All the features are included on every plan, and the price you pay only varies based on how many people you’re covering.

What I can say is that for a comprehensive plan like CompleteID offers, it’s one of the best deals out there. That said, you do need to have a Costco membership to use CompleteID so if you don’t, that’s going to impact the price.

The most comparable Identity Theft Protection plans are going to come from Aura, and I do think that they have a slight edge over CompleteID both in terms of monitoring and threat resolution.

Conclusion

And while you get a slightly better price with CompleteID if you pay monthly as a Business or Gold member, Aura is a bit cheaper if you pay annually. Of course, that’s not including the cost of your Costco membership.

That’s also before you apply my discounts, so remember to check out my links for the latest deals—that might be the tie breaker.

All in all I think CompleteID will treat you well, but I do recommend you check out Aura before making your decision. If nothing else, you’ll know how green the grass was on the other side.