(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Consumers reported over 670,000 cases of fraud and identity theft in 2006 that cost them $1.2 billion in losses, the Federal Trade Commission said in its annual report.
For the seventh straight year, identity theft was the most common complaint, the FTC said, accounting for 36%, or 246,035, of the complaints.
ID theft complaints have leveled off after a steep increase earlier this decade. The number of ID theft complaints jumped from almost 162,000 in 2002 to a record 246,882 in 2004, slightly higher than last year's number, the agency said.
Credit card fraud was the most common form of identity theft, the FTC said, making up 25 % of the complaints, followed by phone or utilities fraud and bank fraud.
At least some of the credit card fraud came from data breaches at companies that track consumer information.
ChoicePoint, for example, which provides credit information and other consumer data to insurance and finance companies, agreed in January 2006 to pay the FTC a $15 million penalty to settle charges that its security procedures violated consumers' privacy rights after thieves infiltrated the company's massive database.
And TJX, the parent company of retailers T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and other stores, said Jan. 17 that hackers had broken into a computer system that handles its credit and debit card transactions. Credit card companies have told customers to watch for suspicious activity in the wake of the breach.
After identity theft, shop-at-home and catalog frauds were the second-leading cause of complaint, accounting for 7 % or almost 47,000 complaints in 2006, followed by fraud in prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries, which made up 7 % of complaints.
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