| Seems like every day, no several times a day, viruses, spyware, identity theft, etc, etc make the headlines. Earlier today I sent out a note about the Android viruses, now tonight this report. Seems many of these mistakes are more by the consumer falling for all the tricks rather than having the wrong computer system. They didn't make it clear but implied. No computer will protect us from falling for a slight of hand. Note that more than half the fraud came from email or websites. John Identity theft tops list of consumer complaints  Blake Ellis, staff reporter, On Tuesday March 8, 2011, 4:25 pm EST The government received more than a million consumer complaints last year, with identity theft enraging the most people. The Federal Trade Commission counted 250,854 complaints about identity theft in 2010, according to a report issued Tuesday. That was 19% of the 1.3 million total complaints the agency received, putting it at the top of the consumer complaint list for the 11th year in a row. The most common form of identity theft was through fraudulent government documents. Credit card fraud garnered the second highest number of identity theft complaints, followed by phone and utilities fraud. Overall, Florida residents reported the highest per capita rate of identity thefts. After identity theft, debt collection racked up the second highest number of complaints, making up 11% of overall complaints. Internet services and prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries each accounted for 5% of complaints, followed by shop-at-home and catalog sales, which made up 4%. Fraud-related complaints accounted for 54% of total complaints, with consumers reporting that they were scammed into paying more than $1.7 billion -- or a median of $594 per person -- last year. About 45% of consumers reporting fraud said that transactions were initiated by e-mail; 11% said they were lured through a website. For the first time, imposter scams -- where scammers pose as friends, family, government agencies or companies to trick consumers into sending them money -- were also among the top 10 complaints. Internet auctions, foreign money offers and counterfeit check scams, telephone and mobile services and credit cards rounded off the list of top ten things consumers complained about last year. |
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