Identity theft tops consumer frauds, Internet auctions come second
I'm getting increasingly worried about this since there's quite a bit of news surrounding identity theft cases. According to an AP story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) this consumer fraud nearly doubled last year and topped the government's list of consumer frauds for the third consecutive year.
However, these stats may have been impacted by the growing awareness of consumers and so may not be truly accurate on a year to year basis. Fraud in Internet auctions came in second and accounted for some 13% of all complaints (in fact, eBay and the FBI work closely together on this growing problem).
The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that 43% of about 380,000 complaints involved the hijacking of someone's identity information, such as a credit card or Social Security number, to steal money or commit fraud.
...Up to 700,000 people in the U.S. may be victimized by identity bandits each year, the Justice Department said. It costs the average victim more than $1,000 in expenses to cope with the damage to their accounts and reputations, the FTC has said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft seems to be doing something right by asking federal prosecutors to speed up investigations and trials related to this crime and California Senator Dianne Feinstein is about to introduce several bills related to this issue.