Fergie's Tech Blog

Identity Theft Tops FTC Complaint List Again

Martin H. Bosworth writes on ConsumerAffairs.com:

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 [.pdf] 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.

posted by Fergie @ 2/15/2008 05:16:00 PM