Click here to participate in the TRAVEL SURVEY

DETER - DETECT - DEFEND
CEO/President's Message, April 2008
By Debi Bray
Madera District Chamber of Commerce

The Madera Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau of the San Joaquin Valley recently co-hosted a luncheon on preventing and surviving identity theft. The Federal Trade Commission released a survey in November 2007 showing that 8.3 million American adults, or 3.7 percent of all American adults, were victims of identity theft in According to recent findings by the Federal Trade Commission on identity theft California ranked number 2 of the 50 states with Madera being listed as NUMBER 2 in the national rankings based on complaints per 100,000 population. READ MORE...

This event was very informative for our members in attendance, but what about those who didn’t attend? What about your employees? I was hit last year with credit card fraud. I learned just from my own personal experience of how much time it takes to settle everything. It took quite awhile to rid myself of the stress it caused me. 24/7, no matter what I was doing it was something I thought about throughout the day. How many of you have employees that have experienced identity theft? How much time from work was lost? Did they have to use their hard earned vacation to handle this, or their sick time, time without pay? This just adds to the loss of a victim. How well did this employee function during the time it took to resolve the issue of being victimized? Their loss can easily become your loss.

I don’t know if we can ever completely stop financial crimes from occurring. I do believe that by sharing the information on how to protect ourselves it can lessen the burden on all of us.

The Federal Trade Commission has an outstanding website that generously allows us to download free educational information to, Deter, Detect, and Defend against identity theft. I would like to encourage you to utilize this website, not only for yourself, but to educate your employees on how to protect themselves. You can download, copy, and distribute information at staff meetings, safety meetings, company newsletters, electronic correspondence, or simply attaching information to paychecks. Consider doing this as on ongoing campaign. Just go to: www.ftc.gov/idtheft and review all the resources, and get going. There is plenty of information right there, furthermore, if you go to the “Reference Desk” tab and go to “Use our Materials” you will find a number of downloads.

On a final note, a huge thank you to Attorney, Ernie LiCalsi; Madera Police Department – Sgt. Dino Lawson and Crime Prevention Office Durbin Lloren; Sheriff John Anderson; US Secret Service Agent Kristin Stahowski, and the Better Business Bureau of the San Joaquin Valley for taking their time to participate the Identity Theft: Prevention and Survival Luncheon Workshop.

We all need to work together, protect yourself, your employees, and your business….PROTECT MADERA!

NOTE: If you were unable to attend the luncheon, there are copies of the handouts available at the Chamber Office

BIA PR APR08