Some of the packages that were sent to troops for the Soldier Comfort Kit program.

This year’s Soldier Comfort Kit Program was another success!  60 large packages were shipped for the holiday season to our troops serving overseas.

This marks the 8th year that First Savings Bank offices accepted items from customers as well as employees, from October thru November, and the response was terrific! 

In addition, special thanks to Pennridge North Student Council and teacher Aliese Davis for coordinating a school-wide drive for items to be included  in the Soldier Comfort Kits.

Thanks to everyone who helped to make this year another success and remembering our troops!

The Senior Fair and Forum will be held Thursday, October 6, at the Pennridge Senior Center, 146 East Main Street, Silverdale.  The free, public educational session will run from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and is geared for area residents approaching 55 years of age or older. Information will be available from more than 20 organizations that are scheduled to attend, all focusing on Senior Citizen issues, concerns and lifestyles.

 One of the highlights of this year’s event will be the recognition and honoring of Nancy Keenan, long-time civic activist and elder care advocate, who passed away in December 2010. Scheduled to attend the event are representatives of Congress, the State Senate, State Representatives, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Aging, as well as Directors, Chairpersons and members of the Bucks County Area Agency on Aging and County Commissioners Office.

 “Mrs. Keenan’s true passion was for the elderly. She became a mostly self-taught authority on elderly law and healthcare following her 1987 completion of the Close Up Foundation’s “Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council Leadership Forum” in Washington, D.C., noted Dean Souder, Vice President, Trust Officer of First Savings.  “She served as chairperson of the Bucks County Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council and also the Southeast Regional Council of the Pennsylvania Council on Aging. She also wrote ‘The Prime Time’ column in an area newspaper, covering issues of importance to the elderly, including Medicare program changes, guardianships, and living wills. Most notably, Mrs. Keenan was a driving force behind the building of the new Pennridge Community Senior Center in Silverdale. In addition she was instrumental in organizing the Pennridge Senior Center Association, Inc. Her advocacy was recognized with many well-earned accolades and awards at the state, county and municipal levels.”

 “Another new addition to this year’s Sr. Fair will be our version of the ‘Antique Roadshow’ with an appraiser on hand,” said Souder. “If you are interested in having an item appraised, bring it to the Fair; we ask that only one item per person be appraised, due to the time restraints.”

 In addition to the exhibitors and guest speakers; prizes, give-aways and refreshments will be available.  Further information can be obtained by calling First Savings at 215-257-5035.

First Savings’ new Buckingham facility opened for business today!  The new location is located in Buckingham Township at 3969 Durham Road (intersection of Route 413 and Cold Spring Creamery Road) Doylestown Pa.

In addition to a full service bank branch with a walk-up ATM and drive thru lanes, the facility is also the new home to First Savings Trust Services Department.

The staff of the new branch, as well as Trust Department representatives, V.P. Philip Rush and Jeanne Mazurek, Administrative Assistant, is eager to serve you and invite you to stop by and see the new facility. 

A Grand Opening Celebration will take place on Friday, Sept. 9 and Sat., Sept. 10.  Saturday will feature fun for the whole family including a moon bounce, youth activities provided by the Central Bucks Family Y as well as Free Food.  In addition, representatives from “WordFM” will be on hand to meet and greet visitors.  There will also be free gifts and fantastic prizes as well as a fabulous new account incentive program for those opening a new First Savings Eagle Evergreen Checking account.

For the fifteenth consecutive year, customers of First Savings are invited to have a hot dog and soda on Friday, June 24 in celebration of the bank’s  anniversary.  “This is just a small token of appreciation to our customers,” said Fred Schea, president and chief executive officer of the bank.  “We’re very fortunate to have such a large base of loyal customers in the communities that we serve, and this is an opportunity to thank them for the trust and confidence that they have shown us.”

The free hotdogs and beverages will be available at all ten bank branch locations of First Savings and will be prepared and served by bank officers and staff members from 3:00p.m. to 6:00p.m.  “Our annual Hot Dog Day is just one way our staff comes together with management to interact and thank all of our customers.”  Founded on June 22, 1922, this year marks the financial institution’s 89th anniversary.

This short update on the Epsilon breach was published April 5, 2010 by CNET, a respected online technology review site.  It contains good basic information on the breach and some good suggested precautions for consumers who feel they may have been impacted.

The list of customers affected by the Epsilon database breach continues to grow.

The breach, which took place last week but was announced over the weekend, compromised the e-mail addresses and some names belonging to the customers of many major U.S. companies that outsource their marketing and e-mail communications to Epsilon.

The company said Monday that 2 percent of the companies it counts as clients are affected by the security breach. There is no official list of affected companies that’s available, and a company spokesperson said Epsilon cannot release the names of its clients. Epsilon is in the midst of conducting an investigation of what led to the security breach.

The list of Epsilon clients whose customer e-mail addresses were stolen is not complete, and is likely to grow. But so far Target, Kroger, TiVo, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Home Shopping Network, Ameriprise Financial, LL Bean Visa Card, McKinsey & Company, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Marriott Rewards, New York & Company, Brookstone, Walgreens, The College Board, Disney Destinations, and Best Buy have notified their own customers about the breach. Hilton Hotels and Ethan Allen are also said to be affected.

Here are some tips on what to do if you did receive an e-mail from one of the companies above or if you believe one of them does have your e-mail or name, and what could happen next.

How do you know if you’re affected?
If you’ve ever given your e-mail address to any of the above companies, you probably are.

What will happen?
Most of the companies that are talking about it say the information that was stolen is limited to e-mail addresses and possibly names. Credit card companies and banks like Chase and Capital One say they do not believe any financial information was compromised.

But a bunch of e-mail addresses in the wrong hands means what’s likely to result is a rise in phishing scams. “Phishing” is an attempt to use e-mail to try to get you to reveal more personal information about yourself. This can include usernames, passwords, Social Security numbers, or account numbers.

Many times phishers are simply guessing and will pick a company that a broad group of people does business with, like PayPal, or a government entity, like the IRS. The threat in the Epsilon case is now whoever gets access to these lists of e-mail addresses knows exactly what companies count you as a customer. That means phishing attempts can be much more targeted and therefore potentially harder to spot because they can masquerade as being from a bank or company such as the ones listed above.

What should you do about it?
Do not open e-mail from someone you don’t know. That’s pretty simple. But you’ll also need to be extra vigilant now that phishers may know specifically where you shop, what airline you fly, or where you bank. Look at the e-mail address–if it’s purportedly from one of the companies above but ends in something other than .com, especially an international domain like .uk, that’s a good indication it’s a scam since most phishing attempts originate outside the U.S. Also be on the lookout for spelling errors in the e-mail address, URL, or body of the e-mail, or e-mails whose tone sounds particularly urgent.

If you do open the e-mail, don’t click any links. A common phishing practice is to ask people to click a link to update their personal information.

If in doubt, call the company
If you get an e-mail from one of the companies listed above asking for any information, and you’re unsure if it’s legitimate, you can always call them. Many retailers affected by the Epsilon breach are notifying their customers now that they would never ask for sensitive information via e-mail.

Read more: 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20050555-260.html#ixzz1IeXIHmfN

First Savings has been invited to participate as one of the presenters/panelists in the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce “Building Green on a Budget” seminar, Thursday, March 17, at the Aldie Mansion (Heritage Conservancy) in Doylestown.  

First Savings has been asked to focus our part of the presentation on Adaptive Reuse of commercial property; featuring branches at Poole’s Corner at the intersection of Route 202 & 313, Doylestown; the Buckingham branch location currently under construction on route 413 and Cold Spring Creamery Road  as well as the 9^th St. Administration Building as case studies. Leading the discussion will be Pete Brown, First Savings VP of Marketing; also participating in the presentation will be Joseph Phillips, partner in George J. Donovan AIA Associates who served as the architect for all three buildings and Steve Swartley, President of Penn Builders who was the general contractor of the three projects. 

The annual event is well attended with more than 100 expected this year.  Attendees included architects, contractors, business persons and others interested in the Green movement.  There is no charge for admission; however, seating is limited and pre-registration is recommended.  More information is available by visiting:  https://www.firstsavingsonline.com/Green/

550 17th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20429-9990 Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection

SA-10-2011
January 12, 2011

SPECIAL ALERT

SUBJECT: Consumer Alert
Summary: E-mails fraudulently claiming to be from the FDIC are attempting to get recipients to click on a link, which may ask them to provide sensitive personal information. These e-mails falsely indicate that FDIC deposit insurance is suspended until the requested customer information is provided.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has received numerous reports from consumers who received an e-mail that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC. The e-mail informs the recipient that “in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, federal, state and local governments…” the FDIC has withdrawn deposit insurance from the recipient’s account “due to account activity that violates the Patriot Act.” It further states deposit insurance will remain suspended until identity and account information can be verified using a system called “IDVerify.” If consumers go to the link provided in the e-mail, it is suspected they will be asked for personal or confidential information, or malicious software may be loaded onto the recipient’s computer.

This e-mail is fraudulent. It was not sent by the FDIC. It is an attempt to obtain personal information from consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT access the link provided within the body of the e-mail and should NOT under any circumstances provide any personal information through this media.

The FDIC is attempting to identify the source of the e-mails and disrupt the transmission. Until this is achieved, consumers are asked to report any similar attempts to obtain this information to the FDIC by sending information to alert@fdic.gov.
For your reference, FDIC Special Alerts may be accessed from the FDIC’s Web site at www.fdic.gov/news/news/SpecialAlert/2011/index.html. To learn how to automatically receive FDIC Special Alerts through e-mail, please visit www.fdic.gov/about/subscriptions/index.html.

Sandra L. Thompson
Director
Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection

Distribution: FDIC-Supervised Banks (Commercial and Savings)

Note: Paper copies of FDIC Special Alerts may be obtained through the FDIC’s Public Information Center, 877-275-3342 or 703-562-2200.

First Savings recently donated $1,000 to the Pennridge Middle School Micro-Loan Program.

First Savings has become the lead sponsor of the Pennridge School District Middle School Micro-Loan program.  A contribution of $1000 was recently presented by Todd Hurley, First Savings EVP and Chief Retail Officer to the school in order to jump start the program that is geared to establish a sense of pride in volunteering as well as helping disadvantaged children in neighboring communities as well as throughout the world. 

More details of the Micro-Loan program are included in a recent article in the Doylestown Intelligencer:  http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer/the_intelligencer_news_details/article/27/2010/december/30/small-loans-big-goals-for-students.html