About
An honest look at the identity protection industry, from an insider who helped build it.
MyScamGuide is written by Tom Reardon, a former product and operations leader who spent over two decades designing, launching, and managing core security portfolios at major identity protection providers.
Authorship & Transparency
A note on the byline
Tom Reardon is a pen name. The career behind it is entirely real: over twenty years spent in technical product management and operations inside the identity protection space.
The reason for the pen name is straightforward. Writing honestly about an industry you spent a career inside is easier when you’re not writing under the name that still shows up on old corporate org charts and LinkedIn connections. Using a pen name lets me say what I actually saw without pulling punches to avoid issues with former colleagues and employers.
The technical analysis, operational insights, and industry critiques are real. The byline is the part that’s new.
The author
Who I Am
I’m Tom Reardon. My background is in technical product management, leading the engineering teams that build identity verification, dark web credential monitoring, and ad-blocking or privacy utilities.
If that sounds like tech jargon, look at it this way: if you’ve ever used a service to lock your credit file, check if your password was leaked in a corporate data breach, or block a malicious tracker from following you online, you’ve used the same technology that I spent two decades building and managing.
I know exactly how these platforms handle your billing data, write marketing copy to sound more comprehensive than the underlying tech, and cross-reference your profiles behind the scenes with major credit bureaus and alternative specialty consumer reporting agencies like DataX, Clarity Services, and the NCTUE.
I’m not bitter about the industry. It provides real value, and I’m proud of the architectural work I did. But there is a massive gap between what people think they’re buying and what they actually get. Closing that gap is what MyScamGuide is for.
Why I Started MyScamGuide
From inside a company, you can only say so much. The lawyers have their language. Marketing has theirs. Customer service follows a strict script. None of them are allowed to tell you that the free option is often the better one.
I’m done with that. I’m writing the exact manual I wish I could have handed every customer who called in confused about what their subscription actually covered.
If a product is worth buying, I’ll say so. If a free alternative works better for most people, I’ll say that too. Credit freezes are free, and for what most people actually need, they’re more effective than most paid monitoring. The industry doesn’t lead with that. I will.
My Editorial & Review Methodology
Credibility comes from consistent methods, not just claims. Because identity protection falls into a critical category affecting your personal security and financial health, every review and guide on this site adheres to strict editorial principles:
No Fear-Mongering: The digital security world is scary enough. I will never use exaggerated threats or panic-inducing language to sell a product. The raw technical facts are enough.
Operational Validation: I evaluate software based on how it actually functions under the hood by analyzing real-time alert speed, how well the software works, ease of cancellation, and the actual utility of their insurance policies.
Zero Pay-to-Play Rankings: MyScamGuide uses affiliate links in its comparison articles to keep the lights on. However, affiliate partnerships never affect what I recommend, how a product is rated, or whether it gets a spot on a list. If a product has design flaws or poor data practices, I will call it out explicitly, even if we partner with them.
Commitment to Accuracy: If an application updates its architecture or I get a technical detail wrong, I will fix it transparently. Reader corrections are monitored and verified personally.
What You’ll Find Here
MyScamGuide covers two things that overlap more than people realize: identity protection and scams. Scams are almost always how identity theft starts. You can’t sensibly write about one without the other.
You’ll find technical explainers that dissect what a service actually does, comparisons that rate products on metrics that matter, and actionable blueprints for the exact moments when your data has been compromised. Everything gets written the same way: advisor-level knowledge, friend-level delivery. No jargon without context. No fear without reason.
Tom Reardon writes MyScamGuide. He spent over 20 years in product and operations at major identity protection providers and now writes to give consumers the honest picture the industry’s marketing never did.