What:
Postal Inspectors and members of the Postal Consumer Advocate’s office will host a news conference and open house to kickoff National Consumer Protection Week in Utah. Postal Inspectors will provide consumers with valuable information on protecting their financial assets from identity theft and fraudulent schemes, and ways to report suspected financial fraud. Helping Utahns guard against losing their hard-earned money to fraud is one of the goals of National Consumer Protection Week

Who:
U.S. Postal Inspectors, Executive Director of the Utah Department of Commerce Francine A. Giani, Director of the Division of Consumer Protection Kevin Olsen, Director of Operations Better Business Bureau of Utah Jody Young, and USPS Consumer Affairs Manager Ron Hubrich.

When:
News Conference: 10 a.m., Tuesday, March 3
Open House: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., March 3

Where:
Retail Lobby of Salt Lake Main Post Office, 1760 W. 2100 S.

Background:
National Consumer Protection Week, set for March 1-7, is a national program led by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw attention to issues and recommendations that help customers become smarter consumers of products, materials and services, and improve their knowledge of how to combat fraud.

The U.S. Postal Service Office of Consumer Advocate and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are working to educate consumers about identity theft and fraudulent schemes. The Postal Service will provide consumers with the tools and information needed to combat these types of crimes, including DVDs and brochures. Representatives of state and local agencies will also be present to distribute information and answer questions.

According to the FTC, as little as 2 percent of all victims reported that the identity crimes they experienced were through the U.S. Mail.

The Postal Service will point customers to the website established by the Postal Inspection Service and its business partners: postalinspectors.uspis.gov and FakeChecks.org.

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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/welcome.htm.

An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation — 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.