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Identity Theft Tops FTC Complaint List Again

Consumers report more than $1 billion in fraud losses

By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com

February 14, 2008    Spanish

Identity Theft • Identity Theft: One Woman's Story • Xbox or PC Stolen? Don't Forget to Cancel Your Credit Cards • Identity Theft a Growth Industry in Texas Border Towns • FTC Warns Consumers About Tax Rebate Scams • Big Banks, Telcos Top Identity Theft List • Identity Theft Tops FTC Complaint List Again • Study Claims Identity Theft 'Continues To Decline' • 650,000 Retail Customers Exposed In Data Breach • Children Becoming Prime Identity Theft Targets • FTC Finds 8 Million Identity Theft Cases • New Jersey Wants Banks to Help Fight Phishing Scams --- • More ...

For the seventh year in a row, identity theft was the number one source of consumer fraud complaints submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). According to the agency's yearly report on fraud complaints for 2007, of 813,899 total complaints received in 2007, 258,427, or 32 percent, were related to identity theft.

According to the FTC, total consumer fraud losses totaled $1.2 billion, with the average monetary loss for an individual at $349. Credit card fraud was the most common form of reported identity theft at 23 percent, followed by utilities fraud at 18 percent, employment fraud at 14 percent, and bank fraud at 13 percent.

The top form of credit card fraud was opening a fraudulent new account at 14.2 percent, followed by fraud on an existing account at 9.4 percent.

The FTC compiled fraud data from consumer complaints in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and identified the 50 metropolitan areas with the highest incidence of fraud and identity theft. The metropolitan areas with the highest per capita rates of reported consumer fraud complaints were Albany-Lebanon, Oregon; Greeley, Colorado; and Napa, California.

The FTC received 140,000 more consumer fraud complaints in 2007 than in 2006, when the agency received 674,354 complaints. The agency received 686,000 complaints in 2005, 255,000 of which were related to identity theft.

The agency compiles the complaints and data from its Consumer Sentinel database, which has collected over 4.3 million consumer complaints since 1997. The agency offered a caveat in its report that the data was not from a survey, but from unverified self-reported complaints.

According to an official FTC survey released in November, 8.3 million Americans were victims of some form of identity theft in 2005.

The FTC's surveys and complaint reports have acted as a counterpoint to claims from the financial industry that identity theft and related fraud are on the decline. A new survey released by Javelin Research & Strategy, and funded in part by Visa, claimed that identity theft dropped by 12 percent from previous years, even as costs of individual cases rose to $691 per affected victim.

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