Thanks to this collaborative effort, any United Financial member who becomes victimized will have a personal advocate to guide and support them through the challenges of identity restoration. This is all provided by United Financial at no additional cost to the members.

"At United Financial Credit Union we are always looking at ways of differentiating our credit union from other financial institutions in the area," said Jessica Gwizdala, Director of Marketing and Training at United Financial. "With the increase of personal information being stolen, we wanted to offer something to our membership and have this program in place if the unforeseen does happen."

Education and Resolution Services

One of the many highlights provided by the Identity Theft 911 service is giving United Financial members access to proactive educational materials at unitedfinancialcu-identitytheft911.org. Members will have the opportunity to educate and protect themselves using the comprehensive tips, threat alerts, facts & resources, and articles found at the educational site.

Most importantly, in the event that a member's personal information becomes compromised, they will receive one-on-one assistance by a personal fraud advocate, with placing credit file fraud alerts with all three major credit bureaus, completing the Federal Trade Commission Fraud Victim Affidavit, and setting up a case file for insurance claims and law enforcement investigations. The fraud advocate will stay with the victim through the entirety of the resolution process. Victims will also receive a full year of credit monitoring and fraud monitoring. Additionally, members' immediate household is covered with these services.

"The Identity Theft 911 Resolution Service has been important to United Financial as well as to our members," adds Gwizdala. "We've had a handful of members that have already used the service since its launch in January 2006, due to a purse or wallet being stolen or becoming full-blown victims of identity theft. It's a service that we provide to our members free of charge, offering the reassurance that there is someone there to help."

In addition, United Financial offers its members free paper shredding at all four of their offices, as a preventative measure. Each member is allowed to bring up to one box of paper items, which will be placed in a bin to be shredded. They have also held public identity theft seminars and are continuing to work with the local police department to educate the community on scams in the area and ways to protect themselves and their families.

The partnership of United Financial and Identity Theft 911 will afford both anticipatory and crisis resolution to United Financial's member base. As Jessica Gwizdala stated, "We wanted to provide our membership with proactive tips to help minimize their risk, as well as have something in place if they do become a victim of identity theft."