FTC Releases Top 30 Consumer Complaints of the Year; ID Fraud Is No. 1

Feb. 26, 2013 — -- intro:

Identity theft, led by a sharp rise in reports of tax return refund hijacking, topped the Federal Trade Commission's list of complaints received last year.

The FTC received over two million complaints last year, and 18 percent were related to identity theft--that's up 3 percentage points from the prior year. Of those 369,132 ID theft complaints, more than 43 percent were tax- or wage-related fraud.

Over one million complaints were fraud-related with total losses of over $1.4 billion, the FTC said. The average amount lost by consumers who complained to the FTC was $2,350.

Government documents/benefits fraud (46 percent) was the most common form of reported identity theft.

The second most reported form of identity theft was credit card fraud (13 percent) followed by phone or utilities fraud (10 percent), and bank fraud (6 percent).

Complaints about government documents/benefits fraud increased 27 percentage points since 2010. The FTC said tax or wage-related fraud accounted for the growth in this area, with 43.4 percent of identity theft victims reporting this problem in 2012

Reports of tax refund identity theft skyrocketed, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The Internal Revenue Service identified 641,690 incidents of identity theft involving tax fraud in 2012 as of Sept. 30. That is a nearly three-fold increase from the 232,142 incidents reported in 2011.

The FTC's full report describing the type of complaints received and categorized by metropolitan areas show Florida is the state with the highest per capita rate of reported fraud and other types of complaints, followed by Georgia and Maryland. Florida also had the highest per capita rate of reported identity theft complaints, followed by Georgia and California.

Here are the top 30 complaints the FTC received in 2012:

quicklist: 1category: 18 percent title: Identity thefttext: 369,132 complaints

quicklist:2category: 10 percenttitle: Debt collectiontext: 199,721 complaints

quicklist:3category: 6 percent title: Banks and Lenderstext: 132,340 complaints

quicklist:4category: 6 percent title: Shop-at-Home and Catalog Salestext: 115,184 complaints

quicklist:5category: 5 percenttitle: Prizes, Sweepstakes and Lotteriestext: 98,479 complaints

quicklist:6category: 4 percenttitle: Impostor Scamstext: 82,896 complaints

quicklist:7category: 4 percenttitle: Internet Servicestext: 81,438 complaints

quicklist: 8category: 4 percenttitle: Auto-Related Complaintstext: 78,062 complaints

quicklist:9category: 4 percenttitle: Telephone and Mobile Servicestext: 76,783 complaints

quicklist:10category: 3 percent title: Credit Cardstext: 51,550 complaints

quicklist:11category: 2 percent title: Foreign Money Offers and Counterfeit Check Scamstext: 46,112 complaints

quicklist:12category: 2 percent title: Advance Payments for Credit Servicestext: 42,974 complaints

quicklist:13category: 2 percent title: Television and Electronic Mediatext: 41,664 complaints

quicklist:14category: 2 percent title: Health Caretext: 35,703 complaints

quicklist:15category: 2 percent title: Mortgage Foreclosure Relief and Debt Managementtext: 33,791 complaints

quicklist:16category: 2 percent title: Business and Job Opportunitiestext: 32,496 complaints

quicklist:17category: 1 percent title: Travel, Vacations and Timeshare Planstext: 30,324 complaints

quicklist:18category: 1 percent title: Internet Auctiontext: 29,553 complaints

quicklist:19category: 1 percent title: Credit Bureaus, Information Furnishers and Report Userstext: 29,268 complaints

quicklist:20category: 1 percent title: Office Supplies and Servicestext: 24,210 complaints

quicklist:21category: 1 percent title: Magazines and Bookstext: 18,906 complaints

quicklist:22category: 1 percent title: Home Repair, Improvement and Productstext: 13,432 complaints

quicklist:23category:1 percent title: Computer Equipment and Softwaretext: 13,386 complaints

quicklist:24category: <1 percent title: Grantstext: 10,257 complaints

quicklist:25category: <1 percent title: Real Estatetext: 8,468 complaints

quicklist:26category: <1 percent title: Investment Related Complaintstext: 7,117 complaints

quicklist:27category: <1 percent title: Educationtext: 3,613 complaints

quicklist:28category: <1 percent title: Charitable Solicitationstext: 3,599 complaints

quicklist:29category: <1 percent title: Clothing, Textiles and Jewelrytext: 2,468 complaints

quicklist:30category: <1 percent title: Buyers' Clubstext: 2,125 complaints