Todd Davis is the CEO of a company called LifeLock, whose ads you may have seen on this website, which promises to keep Americans safe from identify theft by alerting them to possible fraud attempts, such as when somebody tries qualifying for a loan in their name or applying for a credit card using their financials.

Davis, often featured in the advertisements, touts LifeLock's full-proof system by even publicizing his own social security number, in ads and on those annoying roving "billboard trucks" that drive around the city. Not only that, but for the past two years in running the service, he's been actively soliciting would-be criminals to try, just try, to scam his identity, daring them to prove LifeLock's capabilities to be a sham.

Turns out, somebody did. And now customers are suing.

Lifelock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him.

Attorney David Paris said he found records of other people applying for or receiving driver's licenses at least 20 times using Davis' Social Security number, though some of the applications may have been rejected because data in them didn't match what the Social Security Administration had on file.

Davis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity, and one succeeded: a guy in Texas who duped an online payday loan operation last year into giving him $500 using Davis' Social Security number.

Paris said the fact Davis' records were compromised at all supports the claim that Tempe, Ariz.-based LifeLock doesn't provide the comprehensive protection its advertisements say it does.

"It's further evidence of the ineffectiveness of the services that LifeLock advertises," said Paris, who is lead attorney on the three new lawsuits, the latest of which was filed this month.

Davis learned about the fraud in Texas when the payday-loan outfit called to collect on the loan, he said. He didn't get an alert beforehand because the company didn't go through one of the three major credit bureaus before approving the transaction.

Davis said it's possible driver's licenses have been issued to other people in his name because of the widespread availability of his personal information — and because of what he described as the flimsy mechanisms in place to report that kind of fraud.

Paris noted that LifeLock charges $10 a month to set fraud alerts with credit bureaus, even though consumers can do it themselves for free. [AP]