Secure Sentinel partners with Virgin Australia to provide identity protection to Australian travellers

4 October: Veda, Australia’s leading data intelligence and information analytics company, will help to protect Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyers[1] from fraud and identity theft via its Secure Sentinel service.

“Identity theft is a thriving billion dollar industry both in Australia and around the world,” says Angus Luffman, Head of Consumer Risk for Veda.

“We are proud to partner with Virgin Australia to offer their frequent flyers a unique and convenient way to help minimise their exposure to risk,” said Mr Luffman.

The new protection packages include SecureIdentity for Platinum Velocity Frequent Flyers and SecurePlus for Gold Velocity Frequent Flyers and will be effective for 12 months from the date of member opt-in. All other Velocity members will have the option to purchase the service and earn Velocity points from October 4, 2011.

Members will be able to register important personal documents and access them online; receive assistance when cancelling and reissuing registered passports, registered credit and debit cards; and put temporary blocks on lost or stolen registered mobile phones to help prevent unauthorised calls being made. They will also benefit from access to IdentityGuard, a feature that can provide the individual with up to $10,000 cover per annum.

Mr Luffman added: “With just a small amount of personal data such as a stolen credit card, an identity thief could take out a second mortgage on a house, or open up a new line of personal credit. In many instances, the first a person learns about their identity being used in this way is when they discover they have a credit default on their account for non-payment of a loan and a loan they never took out.

“Secure Sentinel will assist Velocity Frequent Flyer Gold and Platinum members by helping to minimise the risk of identity fraud, and covering them from some of the worst case travel scenarios, including assistance with lost luggage, stolen passports and personal documents. Secure Sentinel’s customer support team is also on hand 24 hours a day to start working on the most efficient solution to the problem”, said Mr Luffman.

Consumer benefits of SecureIdentity and SecurePlus include:

Credit file: Receive a copy of your credit file to help you to determine that your credit history is accurate and up-to-date (SecureIdentity only).

Credit alerts: Ongoing email alerts will help you to keep track of changes to your credit file (SecureIdentity only).

IdentityGuard: Provides you with up to $10,000* cover per annum.

Financial card registration: Veda will cancel lost or stolen registered financial cards including credit, debit and ATM cards and assist in arranging for replacements to be reissued.

Mobile phone registration: If your registered mobile phone is lost or stolen we'll place a temporary block on it to help prevent unauthorised calls being made.

Key retrieval: Receive coded key tags so that lost keys can be returned if found.

Passport: We arrange cancellation of your lost Australian passport, assist with its reissue and remind you when any passport you hold is due for renewal.

Emergency cash advance: If eligible, in the event of loss or theft we'll quickly provide an emergency cash advance of up to AU$1,000 via Western Union.

Important documents and possession registration: Register all your important documents and possessions. This information is kept safe until it's needed such as for a police or insurance report.

Luggage retrieval: Luggage tags will alert anyone, anywhere in the world who finds your bags to call us immediately.

Fraud deterrent labels: Attention-grabbing labels can be placed on important items to help deter theft and assist in returning the item should it be found.

Online vault: Safely upload and store important documents including certificates and wills.

Change of Address: We can inform multiple service providers.

Global Assistance: You can reach Secure Sentinel 24 hours a day, 365 days a year via our Australian-based customer support centre. Our specially trained staff are always ready to assist.