Website
www.cardcops.com
...By More than 200 Financial Institutions
Card PatrolSM Protects Account Holders and Increases Confidence in Banking Transactions
NORWALK, Conn., Jan. 7, 2009 - Affinion Security Center, a leading provider of identity theft protection services, announced today that more than 200 U.S. and Canadian financial institutions have selected Affinion Security Center's Card PatrolSM to offer their account holders protection against identity theft.
The benefits provided exclusively through Card Patrol are now available to approximately 10 million account holders nationwide through national, regional, and community banks and credit unions. Card Patrol marketing by financial institutions has increased 100 percent in the past five months - in July, Affinion announced Card Patrol had been marketed by over 100 financial institutions; demonstrating a 100 percent increase in the last six months.
Card Patrol protects an institution's account holders through real-time monitoring of the chat rooms where thieves buy and sell debit and credit card numbers, to help prevent fraudulent charges before they occur. Account holders can register up to ten account numbers and receive an instant e-notification of suspicious activity associated with any of their registered credit or debit card numbers. Additionally, consumers are notified when other personal information appears on-line or in chat rooms, including social security number, mother’s maiden name, and card PIN numbers.
"The rapid growth of this program indicates consumers' increased attention to the threat of identity theft, the link to personal finance and consumers' reliance on trusted financial partners to provide them with reliable solutions," said Tom Rusin, CEO of Affinion Security Center.
"We strategically evaluate each service provider that we recommend to our customers in an effort to provide only the most relevant and valued options," said Serge Rivest, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Davis + Henderson, a leading provider of programs to the Canadian financial services industry. "Card Patrol has been successful in increasing awareness of identity theft as it continues to claim more victims worldwide. This service has been a benefit that many of our customers take advantage of."
About Affinion Security Center
Affinion Security Center, a division of Norwalk, Connecticut-based Affinion Group, is a premier security, credit monitoring and identity theft protection innovator with nearly 35 years of global experience. It launched HotLine, a leading ID theft, credit card, fraud protection and security service in 1969. PrivacyGuard, a comprehensive membership credit monitoring product which was created in 1992, remains one of the most widely used in the U.S. In 2006, ID Secure, a sophisticated tool that uses leading-edge public records, Social Security number and credit monitoring technology to fight ID theft, was born. Another ID theft protection service in Affinion's growing security business is PC SafetyPlus, an identity theft software service that protects members with a personal firewall to thwart hackers and other online ID threats. PC SafetyPlus software features automatic updates and service upgrades for protection against prevailing computer viruses, spyware and worms. In 2008 BreachShield, the preeminent solution to corporate data breach response, was introduced to the product line. Affinion Security Center is part of the steering committee of the Identity Theft Prevention and Identity Management Standards Panel (IDSP) and is a member of the Staples Security Council. For more information please visit www.affinion.com.
About Affinion Group
As a global leader with nearly 35 years of experience, Affinion Group (www.affinion.com) enhances the value of its partners' customer relationships by developing and marketing valuable loyalty, membership, checking account, insurance and other compelling products and services. Leveraging its expertise in product development and targeted marketing, Affinion helps generate significant incremental revenue for more than 5,300 affinity partners worldwide, including many of the largest and most respected companies in financial services, retail, travel, and Internet commerce. Based in Norwalk, Conn., the company has approximately 3,300 employees throughout the United States and in 10 countries across Europe, and markets in 14 countries globally. Affinion holds the prestigious ISO 27001 certification for the highest information security practices, is PCI compliant and Cybertrust certified. For more company and investor information visit www.affinion.com.Safe Harbor Statement
"Safe Harbor" Statement under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Affinion Group's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year and other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.