Business Practices & Corporate Accountability News

The Federal Trade Commission announced today that identity theft has topped the list of consumer complaints the agency received for 2006. More than a quarter of a million ID theft complaints were lodged with the agency last year, accounting for 36 percent of the 674,000 complaints the FTC received. Click here to download a PDF of the report.

This marks the seventh consecutive year that identity theft has been ranked number one. The second-largest number of complaints, 7 percent, came from consumers who were unhappy with products they had ordered from catalogs.

"While this complaint data tells us identity theft is a major problem, it's really just the tip of the iceberg," said MASSPIRG Consumer Advocate Eric Bourassa. "We know that only a fraction of victims complain to the FTC."

The FTC stressed that its consumer complaints data is merely anecdotal. However, the agency is working on a more rigorous study of identity fraud trends and is expected to release that data in the coming months.

Responding to the growth of this crime, 35 states have taken action to pass stronger identity theft protection laws, including all the New England states except Massachusetts. These state laws involve security breach notification requirements and credit report security freeze provisions.

"The breach notification law requires any entity that collects consumers information to give notice if that data has been lost or stolen and may fall into the hands of a thief," said Bourassa. "And the security freeze gives consumers the ability to block access to their credit report so thieves cannot open new credit accounts in their name and rack up debt."

Consumer advocates are urging Beacon Hill lawmakers to make similar protections a top priority.