Is ID Theft Still a Problem? Yes!!!

The financial services industry has been promoting that identity theft is on the decline and that it is no longer the serious problem it once was. They'd like to think so, wouldn't they? According to the Federal Trade Commission, that's not necessarily the case. For the seventh year in a row, the crime identity theft has topped the FTC's complaint list.

So what does the statistics from the 2006 FTC complaint list tell us? First of all, identity theft accounts for 36% of the 674,354, or 246,035 consumers reported being victims of ID theft. That doesn't even account for all the cases. There will always be a percentage that don't report the crime because either it was a close friend or relative and they don't want to press charges or they are embarrassed about being a victim and getting scammed. On the decline they say?

While there were no close runners-up, some distant ones include shop-at-home/catalog sales (7%); prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries (7%); Internet services and computer complaints (6%); Internet auction fraud (5%), and the list goes on from there.

I hope that this report is enough to convince you that identity theft is still very much with us. Keep that information safe.