Washington — Identity bandits victimized thousands of people last year, stealing their financial information and branding some with criminal records. This fast-growing crime accounts for more than 40 percent of consumer-fraud complaints.
The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that identity theft complaints far exceeded other areas of fraud such as deceptive Internet auctions and lotteries. The figures come from a government database of more than 200,000 complaints collected in 2001 from more than 50 law enforcement and consumer groups.
Privacy advocates say the number of people victimized by identity theft may be as high as 750,000 a year.
"We've seen an explosion in this crime and it's not going away," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a San Diego-based consumer group.
Givens said consumers should look at their credit reports twice a year, shred personal documents before throwing them away and cleanse wallets of old receipts and printed Social Security numbers.
However, she cautioned: "You could take all the preventative steps and still become a victim."
It cost the average victim more than $1,000 to clean up the mess left by identity thieves, the FTC said.
After identity theft, the top consumer fraud complaints of 2001 were problems with Internet auctions and deceptive trial offers and charges from Internet and computer services.
Credit card fraud accounted for 42 percent of identity theft complaints, followed by scams where phone or utility accounts were created in a person's name without his or her knowledge.
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