• Consumer Sentinel now contains over 4.3 million fraud and identity theft complaints and is accessible to over 1,700 law enforcement agencies – including every state attorney general in the U.S. and consumer protection agencies in 23 nations.
  
  The FTC received over 800,000 Consumer Sentinel complaints during calendar year 2007 - 32% were Identity Theft Complaints and 68% were related to other types of fraud.
  
  Fraud
  
  
• A total of 555,472 of the Consumer Sentinel complaints were fraud-related. Shop-at-
• Home/Catalog Sales was the leading complaint category with 8% of the overall complaints, followed by Internet Services (5%), Foreign Money Offers (4%), Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries (4%), Computer Equipment and Software (3%), Internet Auctions (3%), Health Care (2%), Travel, Vacations and Timeshare (2%), Advance-Fee Loans and Credit Protection/Repair (2%) Investments (2%), and Magazines and Buyers Clubs (2%).
• Consumers reported fraud losses of over $1.2 billion; the median monetary loss was $349. Eighty-nine percent of the consumers reporting fraud also reported an amount paid.
• The percentage of fraud complaints with wire transfer as the reported payment method continues to increase. Twenty-eight percent of the consumers reported wire transfer as the payment method, an increase of 5 percentage points from calendar year 2006.
• Some 64% of fraud complaints where the company's method of initial contact was reported indicate Internet solicitations - electronic mail at 49% and web at 15%. Fifty-three percent of all
• fraud complaints reported the method of initial contact.
• The metropolitan areas with the highest per capita rates of reported consumer fraud complaints are Albany-Lebanon, Oregon; Greeley, Colorado; and Napa, California.
  
  Identity Theft
  
  
• Credit card fraud (23%) was the most common form of reported identity theft followed by phone or utilities fraud (18%), employment fraud (14%) and bank fraud (13%). Other significant categories of identity theft reported by victims were government documents/benefits fraud (11%) and loan fraud (5%).
• Electronic fund transfer-related identity theft continues to be the most frequently reported type of identity theft bank fraud during calendar year 2007.
• The metropolitan areas with the highest per capita rates of reported identity theft are Napa, California; Madera, California; and Greeley, Colorado.

Read More