Experian IdentityWorks Review

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Experian IdentityWorks is an identity theft protection service from the largest of the three credit bureaus. The service features plans for individuals and families for free or as a paid subscription. It focuses primarily on credit-related services, but also offers identity theft insurance, identity restoration assistance and comprehensive identity monitoring

Read on to learn more about Experian IdentityWorks, including its pros and cons, id theft protection plans and customer satisfaction.

Best for credit monitoring

Credit services are found in most paid identity theft protection plans, albeit to a limited extent. Although plans with more complete credit services exist, these come at a much higher cost. Experian IdentityWorks strikes a good balance between cost and features, offering extensive credit monitoring and alerts alongside strong identity theft protection and recovery services.

Experian identity theft protection pros and cons

Pros explained

Extensive credit services

Experian IdentityWorks’ premium plan comes with a wide range of credit services in addition to advanced identity monitoring. This includes three-bureau credit monitoring and alerts, quarterly three-bureau credit reports and FICO Scores, daily experian FICO scores and a credit score tracker.

The company’s free plan offers several of the aforementioned services, but they are limited to your information and credit file with Experian. Even so, this is noteworthy given that other identity theft protection companies are likely to make you pay for these services instead.

Instant credit lock feature

IdentityWorks Premium customers can lock their Experian credit reports instantly to prevent new credit applications from being processed. This will stop unauthorized users from opening new credit cards, taking out new loans or applying for credit lines on your behalf without your explicit approval.

When your credit reports are locked, you will remain protected even if someone gets access to your personal identity and credit information. Experian CreditLock also notifies users in the event of credit inquiries and scheduled unlocking.

Monthly privacy scans

Paid Experian IdentityWorks plans offer monthly privacy scans and help getting personal data removed from covered people finder sites. This can help reduce the risk of identity theft, hacking and robocalls. Experian will also perform daily scans of over 600,000 web pages to detect if your info has been stolen.

7-day free trial

Experian IdentityWorks is a good option for beginners thanks to its free 7-day trial period. If you’re still learning about identity theft and aren’t sure if protection services are for you, you can get started without committing to a plan for longer.

Both the IdentityWorks Premium and IdentityWorks Family plans qualify for this offer. Although you will need a credit card to start your free trial, you can cancel it anytime within the 7-day window.

Cons explained

Lacks cybersecurity tools

Despite its high price tag, Experian IdentityWorks does not offer cybersecurity software with any of its plans. This is a clear disadvantage when considering that most competitors offer at least some type of tool to protect the devices and online activity of their customers, for example, a VPN, antivirus, password manager, tracker blocking, and so on.

Limited customer service

Experian does not offer 24/7 customer service, which can be an important feature if you’re trying to protect your identity and personal finances. Experian customer service is only available by phone between 6 am to 8 pm Pacific Time Monday through Friday and 8am to 5pm Pacific Time Saturday and Sunday.

Difficult to cancel

Canceling your Experian IdentityWorks plan can be a hassle, whether you decide to cancel before your 30-day trial is up or after several months or years of paying for the service. Unlike most identity theft protection plans, Experian requires members to call its customer service line to cancel their plans. This can be tricky, considering that they don’t offer 24/7 customer service.

Experian identity theft protection plans

Experian has one free plan and two paid identity protection plans: IdentityWorks Premium and IdentityWorks Family. The free plan offers the absolute basics of identity theft protection, while the paid plans come with a wide variety of monitoring and alerts, identity theft insurance, lost wallet assistance and more.

As one of the three major credit bureaus, Experian offers one of the best credit monitoring services on the market.

IdentityWorks Basic

Experian’s free identity theft protection plan, IdentityWorks Basic, is as simple as you might expect. On the identity monitoring front, it features only a personal privacy scan and dark web surveillance report. Credit-wise, it offers credit monitoring and alerts for your Experian credit file, as well as an Experian credit report, FICO score monitoring and FICO score tracker.

IdentityWorks Basic is a strong option for a free credit monitoring plan, given that its limited services match than what some companies may offer in their cheapest plans — identity monitoring notwithstanding.

IdentityWorks Premium is one of Experian’s two paid plans. It’s ideal for individuals who want to keep tabs on their credit in addition to their personal information.

The Premium plan comes with everything in IdentityWorks Basic plus the following monitoring and alert services:

• Financial account takeover alerts
• Social Security number tracing
• Change of address alerts
• Court records and bookings alerts
• Non-credit loan alerts
• Sex offender registry alerts
• Identity validation
• Dark web internet surveillance reports

The plan also comes with the credit services below:

• Experian CreditLock with alerts
• 3-bureau credit monitoring and alerts
• Quarterly 3-bureau credit report and FICO® scores
• Daily Experian FICO® scores
• FICO® score tracker

Other standout features of the Premium plan include id theft insurance for up to $1 million, lost wallet assistance and dedicated fraud resolution support.

IdentityWorks Family

IdentityWorks’ Family plan includes all the benefits of IdentityWorks Premium, plus:

• Coverage for one additional adult
• Identity monitoring for up to 10 children

Experian identity theft protection pricing

When compared to regular ID theft protection plans, the price of Experian’s single paid plan is a major disadvantage. However, it remains very competitive compared to those that also offer credit monitoring, protection and reports. Both the Premium and Family plans come with a 7-day free trial.

Experian identity theft protection financial stability

Experian is one of the three major U.S. credit bureaus, making it highly unlikely that the company’s theft protection services would be affected due to financial instability. Its revenue in 2022 was $6.26 billion, with an operating profit of $1.41 billion. This represents an increase of 17% in revenue and 20% in profit compared to the previous year.

Experian identity theft protection accessibility

Experian IdentityWorks is available to all individuals who wish to receive identity theft protection services from Experian. However, users who wish to receive credit monitoring services must meet eligibility criteria like having a U.S. credit file with Experian. You may contact Experian customer service to learn more about plan eligibility.

Availability

Experian IdentityWorks is a fully online product available to all consumers, regardless of location. Per the IdentityWorks Terms of Service, the only eligibility requirements to enroll in the program are completing the enrollment forms and accepting the End-User Terms and Conditions.

To receive credit monitoring services, consumers must provide their U.S. Social Security Number, be at least 18 years old, have a U.S. credit file with Experian, pass all identity and authentication requirements and agree to the respective End-User Terms and Conditions.

Contact information

Experian offers customer service by phone from 6 am to 8 pm PT Monday-Friday and 8am to 5pm PT Saturday and Sunday.

You can call Experian customer support at 1-800-854-7201 and the IdentityWorks customer support at 877-251-5822. If you prefer email, you can contact Experian support at eSupport@experian.com.

The IdentityWorks team can be reached at ExperianIDWorks-Support@experian.com. You may also be able to find a solution to your problems via the Experian Help Center, where you can find answers to common questions and product guides.

User experience

Experian IdentityWorks customers can manage their accounts from the online IdentityWorks portal. You can also use the Experian app to sign up for and manage your IdentityWorks plans.

The Experian app is available for iOS on the App Store and has an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on over 2.2 million reviews. The app is also available for Android devices on the Google Play Store with a similarly positive average review of 4.7 out of 5 stars based on more than 557,000 customer reviews.

Experian offers comprehensive tools for understanding and taking control of your credit and financial identity. The company also offers credit education for its IdentityWorks customers to help them proactively keep their identity safe. This can improve the experience for new users who may not be fully aware of what identity theft protection entails.

Experian identity theft protection customer satisfaction

As a whole, Experian has a poor average customer satisfaction rating. The company has 1.09 out of 5 stars and a B- grade on its Better Business Bureau (BBB) profile. However, Equifax and TransUnion, the other two major credit bureaus, have similar average ratings on their BBB profiles, with average ratings of 1.08 and 1.07 out of 5 stars, respectively.

It’s also worth noting that Experian is a large corporation that offers many credit reporting and monitoring services, so the average reviews of the company may not reflect the quality of its IdentityWorks plans.

How we evaluated Experian identity theft protection

When considering Experian’s identity theft protection plans, we looked at the following factors:

• Plans offered
• Pricing
• Experian’s financial stability
• Plan availability
• Customer service contact options
• Average customer satisfaction
• User experience

Summary of Money’s Experian IdentityWorks review

Experian IdentityWorks is designed to provide users with peace of mind and protection against the risks of identity theft. The service provides comprehensive protection, a user-friendly interface and 24/7 monitoring, making it one of the best identity theft protection services.

Experian has two paid identity protection plans: IdentityWorks Premium and IdentityWorks Family. Remember it may be difficult to contact customer service or cancel your plan.

Even if you sign up for Experian’s identity theft protection service, you should still be proactive in minimizing potential threats to your identity and learn how to report identity theft. For example, you should enable multi-factor authentication when available, keep your bank account number a secret, use strong online passwords and never hand out personal information on any calls.