NCJ Number
245551
Date Published
February 2014
Length
104 pages
Annotation
This report contains information about unverified complaints made by consumers as collected by the Consumer Sentinel Network.
Abstract
The Consumer Sentinel Network (CSN) is a secure online database that contains millions of complaints made by consumers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and various State law enforcement organizations. This report by the FTC contains information about these unverified complaints. Highlights from the report include the following: the CSN contains over 9 million complaints made between 2009 through 2013; of the more than 2 million complaints received in 2013, 55 percent were for fraud, 14 percent were identity theft complaints, and 31 percent were other types of complaints; over 1 million complaints were fraud related, with consumers paying over $1.6 billion in those complaints; almost half of all fraud-related complaints reported the method of initial contact, of which 40 percent were via the telephone; Florida had the highest per capita rate of both reported fraud and reported identity theft complaints; and the most common type of identity theft reported was government documents/benefits fraud (34 percent) followed by credit card fraud (17 percent). The data in this report is reported on a calendar year basis and categorized along a variety of factors, including victims' age, State, metropolitan area, contact with law enforcement, and method of contacting the victims. Tables, figures, and appendixes