Consumers have a new No. 1 gripe
For 15 years, identity theft topped a national ranking of consumer complaints compiled by the Federal Trade Commission. That changed in 2015, as debt collectors rose to the No. 1 spot among the categories of consumer complaints received by the FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network.
However, the year-to-year numbers aren't based on apple-to-apple comparisons. The report noted a surge in debt collection-related complaints via PrivacyStar, a service that identifies a caller and provides for complaint filing to the FTC.
Still, debt collection accounted for 29 percent of consumer complaints last year, followed by identity theft at 16 percent and imposter scams at 11 percent, the agency said.
Of all identity theft complaints the FTC tallied for last year, more than 45 percent involved scams with tax returns, up from nearly 33 percent in 2014. Fraud that involves filing a phony claim on someone else's behalf and pocketing the refund recently took on a new twist: thieves who pretend to be a company's CEO, for instance, to get personal information including Social Security numbers.
The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network received more than 3 million beefs last year, with Florida reporting the highest per capita rate of fraud and other types of complaints, followed by Georgia and Michigan.
Missouri had the highest per capita rate of reported identity theft, followed by Connecticut and Florida.
The rankings, however, come with a rather large caveat. As the FTC's Lesley Fair explained in a blog: "There's no way to accurately differentiate between states with a high incidence of fraud and identity theft versus states with savvy consumers who are more likely to file a complain if they've been victimized."