NEWS MAIN

Identity-Theft Complaints Double

(AP) The Federal Trade Commission reports that 43 percent of roughly 380,000 complaints involved the hijacking of someone’s identity information, such as credit card or Social Security number, to steal money or commit fraud.

 The figures come from a government database of complaints collected from the FTC, the FBI and scores of law enforcement and consumer groups. Gripes about fraud in Internet auctions ranked No. 2 and accounted for 13 percent of complaints.

 Outlining the most-frequent complaints on a nationally broadcast interview Wednesday, the FTC’s Howard Beales said reports from consumers have increased with greater awareness of the problem prompted by recent high-profile identity-theft cases.   “I think identity theft is a particularly pernicious crime,” said Beales, on CBS’s “The Early Show.”  Beales, who heads the FTC’s consumer protection bureau, called identity theft “one specific fraud that we really reach out and try to gather complaints about.”

Up to 700,000 people in the United States may be victimized by identity bandits each year, the Justice Department says. It costs the average victim more than $1,000 in expenses to cope with the damage to their accounts and reputations, the FTC has said.

 “This is a crime that is almost solely on the shoulders of the victim to resolve,” said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a San Diego-based consumer group. “They’re beleaguered, they’re tired, they’re angry and it takes them a good deal of time to recover.”

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