FTC Releases Top 10 Consumer Complaint Categories for 2004
The Federal Trade Commission has released its annual report detailing consumer complaints and listing the top 10 categories of fraud-related complaints filed with the FTC in 2004. For the fifth year in a row, identity theft topped the list of complaints, accounting for 39 percent of the 635,173 consumer fraud complaints filed with the agency last year.
The top categories of consumer fraud complaints for 2004 include:
- Internet Auctions - 16 percent
- Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales - 8 percent
- Internet Services and Computer Complaints - 6 percent
- Foreign Money Offers - 6 percent
- Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries - 5 percent
- Advance-Fee Loans and Credit Protection - 3 percent
- Business Opportunities and Work-at-Home - 2 percent
- Telephone Services - 2 percent
- Other (miscellaneous) - 12 percent
Other findings from the report include:
- Of the 635,173 complaints received in 2004, 246,570 were identity theft reports and 388,603 were fraud complaints.
- Internet-related complaints accounted for 53 percent of all reported fraud complaints.
- The major metropolitan areas with the highest per-capita rates of complaints concerning consumer fraud were Washington, DC; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA; and Las Vegas-Paradise, NV.
- Credit card fraud was the most common form of reported identity theft, followed by phone or utilities fraud, bank fraud, and employment fraud.
- The major metropolitan areas with the highest per-capita rates of reported identity theft were Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA; and Las Vegas-Paradise, NV.
Copies of the report, “National and State Trends in Fraud and Identity Theft,” are available on our website, the FTC website, and from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580.
Consumers can file fraud and identity theft complaints by going to the FTC’s home page at www.ftc.gov.
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