Bank of America Privacy Assist
Is This Your Business?2.0
3.2
Overall Score
Author: Kaitlyn Short
Privacy Assist is an identity theft protection service offered by Bank of America, which is a banking and financial services institution founded in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1998. The company provides a wide range of insurance solutions and financial services to over 47 million consumers, 4,700 retail financial centers, and 3 million businesses worldwide.
Top Ranked Companies
The Good
- Affordable
- Credit Monitoring Services
Affordable
At $9.99 per month, Privacy Assist is reasonably priced and affordable for most consumers.
Credit Monitoring Services
As part of its services, Privacy Assist provides its customers with credit monitoring and reports from all three major credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. If any suspicious activity is detected, the company will issue an alert to the customer immediately. The company will also assist consumers to dispute errors that may be discovered on credit reports.
The Bad
- Lack of Features
- Lawsuit
Lack of Features
Unfortunately, Privacy Assist places a heavy emphasis on credit monitoring and does not offer a number of other important identity protection features, including identity theft insurance, internet scanning, bank account monitoring, antivirus software, and identity restoration.
Lawsuit
In 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Bank of America to refund $727 million to its customers for illegal credit card practices dating back to the year 2000. These allegations included but were not limited to billing customers for add-on products such as Privacy Assist without or before having the authorization to do so. Bank of America was also fined an additional $45 million for deceiving customers into believing that these add-ons came with a free 30-day trial, when in reality, customers were being charged for services, some of which were not rendered, as soon as they signed up.
The Bottom Line
Bank of America's Privacy Assist is affordable and provides credit monitoring from all three major credit bureaus. However, Privacy Assist is missing a number of important features, including identity theft insurance and identity restoration. Additionally, Bank of America was involved in a lawsuit in 2014 because it was billing customers for add-on products such as Privacy Assist without having the authorization to do so.
