M&P Legal Services, LLC offers new coverage

LIHUE — Mel Rapozo, owner of M&P Legal Support Services, LLC, and a Director with Prepaid Legal Services, Inc., is proud to announce the availability of the brand new Identity Theft Shield.

Prepaid Legal Services, Inc. (NYSE:PPD) is a pioneer of the legal services industry. With more than 30 years of experience in providing legal rights protection to individuals and families, Prepaid Legal has now teamed with Kroll, Inc. (Nasdaq:KROL), the world’s leading independent risk consulting company.

Kroll provides a broad range of investigative, intelligence, financial, security, and technology services to help clients reduce risks, solve problems, and capitalize on opportunities.

Headquartered in New York with more than 60 offices on 6 continents, Kroll has a multidisciplinary corps of more than 2,200 employees and serves a global clientele of law firms, financial institutions, government agencies, and individuals.

Over the last three years, Kroll has developed a unique solution for victims of identity theft. This is a new service now available to Prepaid Legal members through their Identity Theft Shield benefit.

Identity theft is real, and it’s a growing threat. Up to 700,000 people in the United States may be victimized by identity bandits each year, according to the Justice Department (press release-2002 FTC Study), and the Secret Service estimates that in 1997 consumers lost more than $745 million due to identity theft.

The average arrest rate (according to law enforcement) is under 5% of all reported cases by victims.

Identity theft crimes include credit card fraud, phone/utility fraud, bank fraud and employment related fraud.

According to the FTC’s figures, ID theft is the most popular form of consumer fraud, in part because it is the most profitable. ID thieves stole nearly $100 million from financial institutions last year, or an average of $6,767 per victim.

Members of the Identity Theft Shield will receive credit reports, regular monitoring of credit activities, identity theft restoration assistance, and $25,000 of insurance to reimburse the member for out of pocket expenses (financial losses not included) that they may incur while Identity Theft issues are getting resolved.

On average, victims spend more than 175 hours and $1,500 in out-of-pocket expenses to clear their names.

With Prepaid Legal’s Theft Shield program, the cost of combating identity theft is much less.

For $9.95 per month, program members have the added security of knowing they have someone to fight the battle for them.

Members must have a current Prepaid Legal Services membership in order to be eligible for this added protection.

This benefit covers both the member and the member’s spouse.

For more information, please call Mel Rapozo.