Here's some news no one will find surprising, identity theft topped the list of FTC complaints last year. Here are the facts:
For the sixth year in a row, identity theft tops the annual list of consumer complaints collected by Federal Trade Commission. But the number of consumers victimized via wire transfer has skyrocketed, tripling in the past two years, the FTC said. And child ID theft cases have nearly doubled in that span.
While the number of complaints only edged up about 5 percent from last year, the dollar losses appear to be rising rapidly. In 2005, 49 consumers reported losing $1 million or more during 2005, the FTC said, compared with 42 in 2004. Nearly 14,000 victims said they'd lost over $5,000 to a con artist, a steep jump from just over 11,000 in the previous year. Average losses were $2,400 per victim; median losses were $350. In 2004, the average was $1,846 and the median was $263.
This is what I was talking about when I posted that identity theft is worse that you think it is. It's bad. And it's not going away. And now they are targeting children. Yet the laws protecting information and punishing criminals are not there yet. Isn't this a crime? When are we going to see some action to make the punishment for stealing IDs a serious offense?
Comments