Are You a Recent Victim of Identity Theft? If So, the FTC Wants to Hear From You.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced in the Federal Register that it will conduct a wide-ranging study of identity theft victims in order to assess the current remedies available to them following the crime. Identity theft victims who have contacted the FTC between January 1 and May 30, 2008, will be asked about their experiences after contacting one or more credit reporting agencies and when they sought to use their FACT Act rights.

The FACT Act (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003) gives consumers certain rights in dealing with identity theft, including the ability to place fraud alerts on their credit files if they are, or suspect they may become, victims of identity theft, to block information on their credit reports that resulted from identity theft, and obtain copies of their credit reports free of charge.

For the seventh year in a row, identity theft has been the top consumer fraud complaint handled by the FTC. The agency's recent report shows that of 813,899 total complaints received in 2007, 258,427 (32%) were related to identity theft. The monetary losses related to identity fraud totals more than $1.2 billion; the median monetary loss per person was $349. Not included in this is the time-value equivalent (for example, the hours spent on the phone with credit bureaus, creditors and police, or monitoring bank and credit accounts for fraudulent activity), which can be significant.

And it appears that even with data breach notification laws in place by nearly all of the states, it has not slowed the proliferation of identity theft. Part of this is attributed to consumers ignoring data breach notification letters. But in most instances, inadequate security practices by companies handling sensitive data are the culprit.

The deadline for submitting comments is Sept. 2, 2008. Comments filed in electronic form should be submitted at: https://secure.commentworks.com/ftcfactasurvey. To ensure that the Commission considers an electronic comment, you must file it on the web-based form.

*** Remember: If you had any type of loan account between January 1987 and May 28, 2008, you are entitled to learn your credit score – free of charge – and get at least six months of a monitoring service from credit reporting giant TransUnion. The monitoring service would provide e-mail notification of late payment reports or accounts opened in your name – red flags that would indicate identity theft. You can file a claim by visiting http://www.listclassaction.com/ or calling 866-416-3470.