New Website Offers Customizable Identity Theft Protection Solutions that Help Increase Customer Security and Loyalty NORWALK, Conn., July 30
NORWALK, Conn., July 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Affinion Security Center, a
leading provider of identity theft protection services, announced today the
launch of a new website that will act as a platform for its robust line of
identity theft protection solutions. The site, www.affinionsecuritycenter.com,
will allow financial institutions, government agencies, educational
organizations and other companies to offer their customers unique combinations
of services aimed at identity theft protection, detection and resolution. By
offering customers solutions to a critical problem such as identity theft,
companies can increase a customer's sense of security which in turn can create
brand loyalty.
The Affinion Security Center website is unique because it allows
Affinion's clients to create customized solutions that address specific risks
to different customers. The portal offers a broad array of services that
clients can choose from to create a customized solution, including: credit
monitoring and reporting, public records monitoring, protection from new
account fraud, social security number monitoring, online chat room monitoring
with Affinion's CardCops service and identity theft resolution services.
The Affinion Security Center is also a source of valuable information
related to identity theft such as an RSS feed of the most up to date news on
the issue. In addition to providing information and customer solutions, the
site highlights the solutions available for businesses such as Affinion's
BreachShield service. BreachShield provides organizations with all of the
tools necessary to develop an effective tactical response to a data breach,
including identity theft and credit monitoring solutions to help reassure
affected customers.
"Affinion has more than 5,000 business clients, many of which are some of
the world's largest financial institutions, so we understand that one of our
clients' main goals is to increase customer retention by offering valuable new
services," said Tom Rusin, CEO and President of Affinion Group, North America.
"One of the ways that we have been able to help our clients most effectively
increase customer retention is through Affinion's identity theft protection
services. With Affinion Security Center, now it is even easier for clients to
create a customized identity theft solution that meets the exact needs of
their customer base."
Affinion Security Center offers customization options and services that
are appropriate for a wide array of organizations. For example, a national
bank might choose to offer customers a full-service solution that includes
credit monitoring, public data sweeps, credit card registration, and identity
theft resolution services, while a university may only want to offer its
students a program that includes credit monitoring and PC protection. A
solution can be built to offer full protection or complement existing
solutions already in place. The services are available for custom-branding, so
organizations can create a cohesive look and feel and increase brand
visibility with customers.
A study conducted by Strategic Research Partners of financial institutions
offering PrivacyGuard, one of Affinion's identity theft protection services,
found that the high level of customer satisfaction with the service led to
stronger customer allegiance for the institutions offering it. More than two
thirds of all customers polled reported that they were more likely to retain
their business with institutions that offered them the PrivacyGuard solution.
According to a recent Javelin Research study there have been 44.8 million
victims of identity theft in the past five years in the United States, and
nearly 18 million in the past two years alone. This crime costs more than $51
billion or $5,920 per victim annually, becoming so prevalent that an identity
thief strikes on average every 3.5 seconds. In fact, ID theft has now
surpassed drug trafficking as the No. 1 crime in America, according to the
Justice Department.
For more information, please visit www.affinionsecuritycenter.com.
About Affinion Security Center
Affinion Security Center, a division of Norwalk, Conn.-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.
SOURCE Affinion Security Center
