ReliaShield review

Our series on identity theft protection apps will evaluate the features, pricing options, competition, and also the overall value of using each app. However, these are not full hands-on reviews since evaluating identity theft protection apps is almost impossible. It would require several months of testing, purposefully hacking accounts to see if the protection app works, handing over personally identifiable information, performing multiple credit checks, and risking exposure of the reviewer’s personally identifiable information.

The homepage of ReliaShield starts with some sobering, albeit outdated stats as they are all from 2018, designed to prompt potential users to some action.  This includes things like “Consumers using social media have a 46% higher chance of account takeover fraud,” and “$14.7 billion was stolen by thieves in 2018.”

Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Reliashield offers an identity theft protection solution. It claims to provide a US based service that is available on a 24/7 basis.

Plans and pricing

ReliaShield offers three tiers of identity protection plans to choose from. While there is no free trial, nor discount for the first months or year as some other services offer, we did like to see that there is an annual discount available for paying for the entire year upfront.

The starter tier is the Essential Plan, which has an affordable cost of $7.99 monthly, or $87.99 when paid annually, for a savings of just over 8%. We like that it includes 24/7/365 support, change of address monitoring, court records monitoring and up to $1 million in stolen funds and expense reimbursement. A significant shortcoming is that it does not include any credit bureau monitoring, as this requires a higher tier plan.

The middle plan is Prime, at a cost of $14.99/month, with a discounted annual cost of $164.99/year. It includes all the features of the lower Essential Plan, and adds in features such as neighborhood predator monitoring, social media monitoring, and single bureau credit monitoring.

Topping the tiers is the Elite plan, which commands the premium price of $21.99/month, with the annually discounted price of $241.89 yearly. Fairly predictably, this plan brings forward all the features of the lower two tiers, while adding some, what some would consider, pretty essential features to an identity protection plan. These include three bureau credit monitoring, a monthly credit score tracker, credit card application notification and bank account takeover notification. In all fairness, plenty of other identity protection services do relegate the tri bureau credit monitoring to a higher plan, but we still don’t like to see it.

Features

ReliaShield’s offering is fairly standard in most respects, not standing out for the most part. This is unfortunate, as with a service that is hardly a household name, we wish there were more features to differentiate it from the pack. It also does not help that on its website, the features for each tier of plan just get listed as a laundry list, without any real details on what they really do. For example, “Court records monitoring,” if you hover over it indicates that it “Tracks and alerts you if a criminal act is committed in your name,” without stating what databases are monitored, is this limited to federal or all 50 states and local municipalities, and how the alert is coming, and in what time period. Also, it seems pretty unlikely that an individual would be convicted of a criminal offense without ever being notified so that they could appear and have their so-called “Day in court.”

At least ReliaShield does offer smartphone apps, both for iOS and Android. On the Apple side, unfortunately there is a single review, and it gives this service the lowest rating. On the other hand, the Android app gets a 4.6/5 star rating, but the most recent review also gives it a single star, although other customers do indicate they are satisfied.

One feature to note among its ‘sameness’ is that ReliaShield does offer identity protection to children in the household for no additional charge. The other notable feature is that ReliaShield claims an amazingly high “100% recovery success rate,” among subscribers that needed to access its recovery service.

Support

Support for ReliaShield has two sides. On the one hand, we don’t want to take too much issue with the single support option that exists. After all, when having a problem with identity theft, it is reassuring to know that help is a simple and direct phone call away, via a toll free number. Also, it is available on a 24/7 basis.

However, in this day and age, we would like to have some other options, such as a support portal, live chat, or email. There are also no whitepapers, online videos, a forum or other advanced options.

The competition

Let’s compare ReliaShield to a top choice in credit monitoring, Aura. While Aura also has three tiers of plans, they are for individuals, and an upgrade needs to be made to a family plan, while ReliaShield includes younger family members at no additional cost. However, we prefer Aura as it includes credit monitoring at all three credit bureaus with user alerts, at anything but the bottom plan, along with useful extras like a password manager- that ReliaShield does not have on any plan. Still not sure? Aura seals the deal with a free trial that ReliaShield does not offer.

Final verdict

When it comes to identity protection ReliaShield gets some basics right with toll free support, affordable plans, $1 million in protection, and including children in the plan. Too bad this company falls short with no other support options, a poor rating on the iOS app, and making the tri bureau credit rating feature only available in its most expensive plan. We think short of some changes to ReliaShield, users should consider other options first for their identity protection needs.

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