Campus Safety & Compliance
Identity Theft Prevention Program
A federally required program (the "Red Flags Rule") for catching the warning signs of identity theft anywhere Porter extends credit or holds sensitive account information.
Why a university needs one
Federal Trade Commission rules require any institution that extends credit or maintains covered accounts — for Porter, that means tuition payment plans, the Porter Card account, and financial aid disbursement — to maintain a written program for spotting and responding to signs of identity theft, not just react after a fraud has already happened.
What counts as a "red flag"
A payment plan set up with an address that does not match the student’s enrollment record, a request to redirect a financial aid refund to a new bank account made by phone rather than through the verified student portal, or a Porter Card reported stolen and then immediately used somewhere far from campus are all flags staff are trained to recognize and escalate rather than process routinely.
What happens when a flag is caught
The office that spots it (usually the bursar, financial aid, or the Porter Card office) freezes the transaction, verifies identity directly with the account holder through a channel other than the one the flagged request came in on, and logs the incident with the compliance officer, who tracks patterns across departments that a single office would not see on its own.
If you are a victim of identity theft involving your Porter accounts
Contact the bursar’s office immediately to freeze affected accounts, and file a report with Porter Police if a physical card or device was involved — the same incident may also need a report to local police and the FTC’s identitytheft.gov, which Porter staff can help walk through.