A report by the US Federal Trade Commission indicates that identity theft was the No. 1 fraud complaint in a government-maintained database that keeps track of consumer complaints.
The database received more than 800,000 complaints in 2007, with 32% of those about identity theft and the rest, or 68%, pointing to various other types of fraud, according to FTC.
Overall, consumers reported fraud losses of more than $1.2 billion, with a median monetary loss per person of $349, according to the FTC report.
John Krebs, an attorney in the FTC's consumer protection bureau, says,"This is the information that consumers have reported. It's not a record of every complaint". Information about complaints is self-reported and unverified. The database, called "consumer sentinel," collects information about fraud and identity theft from the FTC and other organizations.
Source:market#@&ch.com |
