Preventing ID theft

SAN DIEGO, USA: ProQuo Inc., a company founded to give consumers meaningful choice over how businesses use their personal information, today announced it has joined with the Council of Better Business Bureaus to help sponsor “Secure Your ID” Day on Sept. 20, 2008 in more than 90 communities nationwide. This community service campaign will provide consumers and small businesses with free on-site document shredding, expert identity protection advice, and substantive solutions to add to consumers’ identity protection mix.

“More than 8 million consumers fell victim to identity theft last year, at a cost of $45 billion to the economy1,” said Steven Gal, CEO of ProQuo. “ProQuo provides a free, easy way for consumers to better control their personal information and reduce their exposure to identity theft. We are proud to partner with the BBB to raise awareness and help consumers fight back.”

ProQuo provides a free web site that enables consumers to stop paper junk mail and gain control over how businesses use their personal information. Using ProQuo, consumers can remove their name from thousands of marketing lists, while stopping the type of unwanted personalized offers that identity thieves love to target. With hundreds of thousands of users, ProQuo is the No. 1 free web site for stopping junk mail and limiting how much marketers know about consumers.

BBB’s first “Secure Your ID” Day, held earlier this year, simultaneously served 54 communities across the U.S. and Canada. More than 500,000 pounds of sensitive documents were responsibly disposed of, making it the largest single-day event of its kind ever held. For the upcoming event, BBB has expanded on-site services and expanded the number of community sites to more than 90. BBB leaders expect the Sept. 20 event to exceed the previous record.

“BBB has a long track record as a consumer protection organization, and identity theft and fraud is a serious assault on consumers,” said Steve Cole, president and CEO, Council of Better Business Bureaus. “Consumers are really their own best line of defense. They hold the power over their own protection more than they may realize and we’re here to show them how.”

Participants are encouraged to bring up to three boxes or bags of documents to be shredded and are asked to remove all documents from binders. For more information on the event, including specific details on event locations across North America, visit: www. us.bbb.org/secureID. For more information on how ProQuo can help consumers better protect their identity, please visit www.proquo.com/bbb.

“Using ProQuo is one of the easiest things consumers can do to help protect themselves against identity theft,” said Jay Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center. “By helping limit the electronic distribution of personal data to many marketers, ProQuo reduces the exposure associated with potential data breaches by these marketers. Thank you to BBB and ProQuo for putting together this important event.”