PORTLAND, Ore. – It started as a credit union public relations executive's nightmare. It ended as an opportunity for the CU to build confidence among its members and bridges to the local media.

On March 3, 2006, a Friday, a member of the $2.1 billion OnPoint Community Credit Union, Oregon's largest, started to see fraudulent charges on his debit card from overseas. Instead of contacting the credit union, the Would the credit union provide a spokesman to appear on camera with the story, the television reporter wanted to know, and thus with only a few hours before the story first would air OnPoint found itself in the middle of what might grow into a media maelstrom.

According to Mary Jane Campbell, a senior vice president with OnPoint, the credit union had a good foundation for addressing the challenge but faced some short-term difficulties.

On the positive side she, CEO Robert Stuart and Frank Astalosh, the CU's chief information officer, all had training in public relations information management. On the negative side, the challenge arrived on the CU's doorstep on a Friday afternoon when Astalosh was only just returning from out-of-town travel and Campbell was leaving.

Further, because of the lateness of the hour before the weekend, the credit union was not going to be able to immediately understand completely where the breach occurred, how much damage may have been done and what sort of response the CU was going to have to make.

Because OnPoint hadn't had the time to fully investigate the nature of the breach and how much damage had been done, the management team of Stuart, Campbell and, later, Astalosh decided against having anyone appear on camera for the initial report.

“We just hadn't had quite enough time to have finished the investigation and to have gotten a handle on what was going on,” Campbell explained. Instead, the CU gave a written statement to the radio station to read on air to reassure members that the credit union was investigating the breach and taking it seriously.

The team didn't send anyone to appear on camera because, with only limited information, there was too much of a chance that a credit union executive could appear ill-informed or evasive if the reporter had pressed for details right then. Also, with Astalosh only coming back into town and Campbell on her way out, there was no one who had on-camera experience who could appear, short of Stuart, and the team decided the issue had not yet risen to a level that called for a statement from the CEO.

When the story broke on camera that night it was worse than the credit union had feared. Not only did the member whose debit card was compromised claim to be a “former fraud investigator” he told the reporter, on camera, that other members had been in line with him to report fraud on their accounts. “It could be an inside job,” the member said to the camera and, by extension, the 365,000 viewers watching.

Within hours, the CU had received approximately 300 calls from members concerned about what was happening with their accounts and what the CU was doing about it.

The team met on Saturday morning and made some decisions. From here on out, Astalosh would serve as the CU's on-camera face for the controversy, filling his role as OnPoint's security officer. The CU team also hashed out the themes it wanted Astalosh and any press releases to highlight.

First, that the CU has a state-of-the art security system to maintain the security of their members' accounts.

Second, the CU emphasized that the breach had occurred with a nationwide retailer and not with the credit union per se. Campbell explained that the story broke just after another story about a retailer possibly being responsible for another nationwide card breach, so the public was already prepared to hear that the breach did not happen at the CU.

Third, the CU reiterated that no member would suffer losses from any of these frauds.

Fourth, members were urged to check their accounts often to help the CU with security and to protect their accounts and, fifth, the CU said it was pressing for legislation which would make sure retailers took more care to protect confidential information. Campbell reported that the CU's efforts worked very well. On Monday, Astalosh appeared on channel 8 and another television news program as well. He hit the CU's themes and the team was pleased to hear the reporter's tone toward the story change when it became clear that there was no “inside job” and that the CU was working to protect members' information from further compromise. The credit union's message of broadening the scope of the story to something beyond just the CU was a key element, Campbell explained. It is what let the CU take a story, which could have been potentially damaging, and reorient it to being a focus on the broader discussion of the dangers of retail card fraud.

Prompted in part by the CU's March 6 press release about the situation, Julie Tripp, a popular columnist for Portland's daily paper, The Oregonian, wrote a column advising consumers about how to prevent credit and debit card fraud, the credit union said.

“In the end, we heard from a lot of members who thanked us for the work we have been doing to help prevent fraud and keep their information safe,” Campbell said, adding that all financial institutions need to be prepared to answer media questions and to be up front and accessible.

“It makes sense for credit unions or any financial institution really to cultivate relationships with the media and to earn their trust and build familiarity as news sources,” she said. “Those sorts of relationships can be crucial when the CU must react when bad news breaks,” she added.

- dmorrison@cutimes.com

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