ID theft up, and 20-somethings suffer most
Update at 9:30 a.m. PST: A new chart has been added to the end of the article.
This was originally published in ZDNet's Between the Lines.
Identity theft cases surged in 2008, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Last year, ID theft was by far the biggest complaint to the FTC, representing 26 percent of total problems reported. The next biggest one--third-party and creditor debt collection scams--represented only 9 percent of complaints.
The FTC's annual Consumer Sentinel Network report (PDF), released Thursday, details that ID theft complaints totaled nearly 314,000 in 2008, up from about 259,000 in 2007 and up substantially from about 31,000 in 2000.
The Consumer Sentinel Network is a secure online database that harvests complaints from law enforcement authorities, as well as other groups such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center and Better Business Bureau.
(Credit:
FTC)
Here are the top 10 complaint categories, which often dovetail with the Internet.
(Credit:
FTC)
E-mail is clearly the preferred means of propagating fraud. Scam artists are most likely going to nail you via e-mail. Phone scams have fallen from 11 percent to 7 percent from 2007 to 2008. My hunch: as more consumers use wireless as their primary phone, it's harder to track down victims.
(Credit:
FTC)
What's also notable: the demographics. Twenty-somethings are most likely to get hit with ID theft.
(Credit:
FTC)
Larry Dignan is editor in chief of ZDNet and editorial director of CNET's TechRepublic. He has covered the technology and financial-services industries since 1995. 
Middle age people know better than to trust the internet (at least 90% of it) with their credit card information and personal information. Younger people haven't seemed to learn that lesson, or it's never really been taught to them.
This would make sense considering in how much of a rush and how desperate e-commerce sites are to have you do business with them over the net, and how much tax revenue and employment come from these companies. No one is in a hurry to teach that the internet is not a safe place for your personal information to be. There is no site in the internet, and no information stored on an internet connected server that, given enough time, cannot be hacked.
If hackers know where the information is, and they want it bad enough, they will get it.
so stick to shopping at a mall where it will be more expensive and you will also buy 1000calorie burgers and friies and soda(each) on the way because it took you all day to drive there and back in this f***in traffic. Pay for the insurance... gas... car maintenance... taxes for road maintenance and... and the salary for the bi**h who cant stay off her phone for 5 seconds to ring you up.
And did the article say anything about credit cards? I didn't see that. I was a victim of ID theft and it was a big pain in the rear. But, it had nothing to do with credit cards. So, before you complain that young people are not responsible with credit cards, perhaps dig deeper to find out what the ID theft actually is that is being reported.
Even if it is credit cards, I see nothing wrong with that. I use credit cards for everything, and I'd use it in a vending machine if given that option. I hate carrying cash around.
iamarcin your comment sounds like a high schooler youngster. It takes me five minutes to drive to my local store to browse their murchandise, compare and purchase. Of course, I use the net to research my purchase first. And, what do you know? If I get it home and I'm unhappy with it, it takes me at most 1/2 hour to 1 hour to return it for another, or even get my money back. All the time I'm supporting our local economy. Judging from your attitude, maybe you should be seeing someone to help you deal with your anger issues.
There's nothing wrong with using your credit card in a vending machine. The reason I chose credit cards as an example is because once you get a persons credit card information it's not too dificult to complete the rest of the ID theft.
I guess/hope that violent crimes numbers are going down because total complaints have risen from 230k to 1,223k in 8 years. That is under BUSHes watch.
You do realize that a President cannot enact legislation and that the Federal Government is not supposed to get into areas such as this, right? This is a law enforcement problem. Stealing from someone, no matter how it occurs, is illegal and should be prosecuted, but it isn't the President's job. You might want to do some research on the structure and limits of Government in the United States -- to supplement what little you must have learned in school -- before making such ignorant comments.
- by Hokulea February 28, 2009 9:19 AM PST
- Identity theft occurs when institutions, financial and otherwise, fail to take the necessary steps to ensure that the person they are dealing with is in fact who they claim to be. In most cases this behavior is profit driven by the entities involved. It can be as simple as insufficient staff to handle the volume of requests for loans etc.
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(7 Comments)When identity theft occurs, the institutions involved become a de-facto accessory to the crime. As the laws stand now, these institutions are not held accountable even though it was through their actions or negligence that the identity theft occurred. If these institutions were held liable for the identity thefts they made possible, then I believe we would see a dramatic decrease in these types of crime.