Consumer Alert

FTC Releases Annual Report on Consumer Complaints

The Federal Trade Commission recently released its annual report detailing consumer complaints filed with the FTC in 2004. For the fifth year in a row, identity theft topped the list of complaints, accounting for 39 percent of the 635,173 consumer fraud complaints filed with the agency last year.

For Washington, the FTC received 9,378 fraud complaints and 5,654 identity theft complaints from consumers in the state. Washington ranked eighth in the nation in identity theft complaints and fourth in the nation in fraud complaints per 100,000 people. (Note that this number reflects consumers who chose to complain to the FTC and other agencies that contribute data to the FTC's fraud and identity theft databases -- it does not necessarily indicate a higher or lower rate of fraud compared to other states.)

The top categories of fraud complaints for Washington consumers were:

• Internet Auctions
• Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales
• Internet Services and Computer Complaints
• Foreign Money Offers
• Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries

<< Back to Consumer Alerts Archive

[Top]