FTC Complaints

• Although the Federal Trade Commission estimates that about 9 million cases of identity theft occur each year, the number of complaints received by the department is lower. In 2008, the FTC received 318,000 identity theft complaints, which was 26 percent of all consumer complaints received that year. That number is an increase over the 249,000 in 2006 and the 262,000 in 2007.
  
  

FTC Survey Results

• In a 2003 survey of 4,000 randomly selected households conducted on behalf of the FTC, 25 percent of identity theft victims failed to report the crime to authorities. The survey also found that 12.7 percent of adults in the United States had been victims of identity theft involving credit card accounts between 1998 and 2003.
  
  

Relying on Complaint Numbers

• Most identity theft victims, according to the 2003 survey, do not report the crime, which makes calculating exact numbers of victims difficult. Using FTC complaint numbers might also be unreliable. In 2009, Nevada ranked third in the number of identity theft cases in the nation because nearly 3,000 ID theft complaints had been made from the state to the FTC, according to a Las Vegas Sun news story. However, in Las Vegas alone in 2007, the police say more than 8,000 identity theft reports were filed. According to the Las Vegas Sun, a police lieutenant estimated that only 10 percent of victims report the crime to the police.
  
  

Types of Identity Theft Misuse

• Credit card fraud constitutes most cases of identity theft. Between 2006 and 2008, 20 percent of the identity theft complaints received by the FTC involved the opening of new credit card accounts or the misuse of existing accounts by the culprits. Fifteen percent of complaints involved government fraud. Filing fake tax papers as the most common and 13 percent involved utilities fraud, such as getting electricity or phone services turned on under the victim's name.
  
  

Identity of Culprits

• About 9 percent of identity theft victims from the 2003 FTC survey knew that the culprits were family members or close relatives. Six percent of the victims knew the person responsible worked for a bank or other financial institution where they regularly did business. An additional 5 percent in the survey had their personal information stolen and misused by an acquaintance, such as a neighbor or friend.