You don't need a hired gun to fend off identity theft. New data shows ID theft topped the list of complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission for the 11th straight year in 2010. The findings will likely result in consumers seeing a fresh barrage of offers for credit monitoring products.
Despite federal efforts to protect Americans from debt- collection abuses, the number of consumer debt-collection complaints filed with the government last year reached 140,036 -- up 17 percent from 2009, according to a Federal Trade Commission annual report. The FTC said it received more complaints about debt collection than any other industry. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, debt collectors may not harass consumers.
Scams by those posing as friends, family, companies or government agencies to get people to send money made the Federal Trade Commission's top 10 consumer complaints for the first time in 2010, the FTC said. The uptick in complaints about these "impostor scams" may reflect an increase in the fraud or simply more awareness of the problem, says FTC lawyer Betsy Broder. But she says the problem isn't showing much sign of abating, despite prosecutions.
One letter from a U.S. senator has done what 4,000 consumer complaints failed to accomplish: Get the Federal Trade Commission to go after "robo-calls" pitching car warranties to consumers' cellphones. Within two days of Sen. Chuck Schumer complaining about a robo- call he received during a Senate hearing, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told the New York Democrat that "law enforcement action in this area can be expected imminently.
Identity Theft Tops the List Again WASHINGTON, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Federal Trade Commission today released the list of top consumer complaints received by the agency in 2010. The list showed that for the 11th year in a row, identity theft was the number one consumer complaint category. Of 1,339,265 complaints received in 2010, 250,854 - or 19 percent - were related to identity theft. Debt collection complaints were in second place, with 144,159 complaints.
If an individual did searches based on, for instance, their own names, neighborhoods, street addresses, and so on, others may be able to find out what other searches the individual did - even if the information revealed is legally private (a search for information related to a confidential medical condition such as AIDS), intensely embarrassing (for example, a search for pom sites), or even evidence of crime (a reported search for tips on how to commit murder). Two privacy groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the World Privacy Forum (WPF) have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) calling AOL's actions unfair and deceptive trade practices.
As shoppers visit retail stores, the risk of identity theft or data breaches as they use their credit cards and checks to purchase gifts is high during the holiday season, experts warn. Despite that the number of identity crimes in Ohio has risen, according to LifeLock Consumer Education, the number of identity theft consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission has decreased in the Dayton metropolitan area.
American consumers reported 20 percent more cases of consumer fraud last year than the previous year, and nearly a third of their complaints related to identity theft, the Federal Trade Commission reported yesterday. The federal agency, in an annual report on consumer-fraud complaints, revealed that out of around 810,000 cases of consumer fraud reported, more than 258,000 involved identity theft, the top complaint for the eighth year in a row.
For local police, identity theft is a crime most effectively fought close to home. Credit card fraud -- whether the actual card is stolen or just the account number -- is the most commonly reported identity theft complaint in New York, according to data kept by the Federal Trade Commission. It accounted for 22 percent -- or 4,180 -- of the 18,906 identity theft complaints logged in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available.
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