MY LIFE is an Internet company that promises to help you monitor your personal information online. Members are notified by email when companies like Private Eye or Radaris offer their personal information. Example:
1 New site that you cannot control exposing private info:
Source: PrivateEye. Go to My Life: View + Remove
Sounds good, eh?
I started a trial membership (seven days), including the Premium version, on June 5 to test their claims.
Right away, I was notified that Private Eye was “exposing my private info.” And so I started the six-day effort to remove my information. On June 7, I was notified about Radaris.
I followed the directions and left my computer on all day and night. This morning (Monday, June 10), I phoned MY LIFE Customer Service to ask why the information had not been removed from Private Eye and Radaris.
The message started with “You are caller number 22 and the estimated wait time is 29 minutes” and was followed by the sadly subpar, sound-quality music with an interruption every minute to relay my status.
Finally, I was “caller number 1 with a wait time of one minute.” And then the call was disconnected. I phone the number again and was caller number one. Several minutes passed before the agent answered.
I asked why my information was still on those sites when I had done as directed to get my information removed. She said I needed to wait for the email.
“What email?”
“To request removal of your personal information.”
“But your website says the member can do it. I’ve been trying for the past five days to remove mine from two web sites, leaving my computer on, checking it throughout the day. The ‘working’ icon was still whirling for both sites (Private Eye and Radaris), but no change had been made. I even responded to the email notices from My Mail to do the same thing.”
Still no changes; still getting the same email:
We found 2 Sites With Your Info. You should delete your information from sites you can’t control to protect your reputation. Summary:
- 2 Sites Searched
- 0 Pending Removals
- 0 Completed Removals
If members cannot remove their personal information from such sites as Private Eye and Radaris on My Mail as advertised, and if MY LIFE can’t do it when the member responds as directed to their email notifications, then why pay MY LIFE for their service?
The only thing MY LIFE did for me was add frustration and disappointment to my life. Tending the “Remove” page for six days, typing my info repeatedly to verify that “Yes, that’s me” is not how I want to spend my time.
The world is what it is. There is no privacy. There is no way to keep your personal information private, certainly not with MY LIFE.
But that does not mean we are helpless! We can block annoying calls by getting an AD BLOCK phone as I did after surgery when I got tired of answering sales calls despite being on the NO-CALL list. For your cell phone, “There’s an app for that.” And we can send our spam email to spam@uce.gov. No hassle, no frustration, no disappointment.
Till next time, please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi
skatingthru2012 