Florida has the distinction of being the state with the highest per capita rate of identity theft complaints in the U.S., a report released by 24/7 Wall St. revealed on Monday. 24/7 Wall St. identified the ten states with the largest percentage of total complaints per 100,000 people.
According to the report, in 2010, Florida with its population of 18.8 million people had 114.8 complaints per 100,000 population. The greatest percentage of these complaints, 24% involved government documents or benefits fraud. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan statistical area, also known as the South Florida metropolitan area or the Miami metropolitan area, has the highest rate of identity theft complaints in the state, and country, with 184.2 complaints per 100,000 residents.
Arizona has the second highest rate of identity theft complaints, with 102.5 per 100,000 residents. The state has the six highest level of all other consumer complaints, 375.5 per 100,000 residents. Arizona also has the third highest rate of fraud complaints regarding both debt collection (57.4 complaints per 100,000 people) and prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries (28.2 complaints per 100,000).
24/7 Wall St. reviewed information from the Federal Trade Commission about fraud and identity theft data that it publishes it in the Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book. According to the CSN, more than 1.3 million consumer fraud claims were filed in 2010. Of the 27 categories, fraud related to identity theft, debt collection, Internet services and lotteries are the most prevalent. Consumers reported losing more than $1.7 billion in those complaints., The average amount lost was $594.
The ten states with the largest percentage of total complaints per 100,000 people were identified. States with large retirement populations were high on the list although the government does not acknowledge this or give any reason it should be so.
24/7 Wall St. also analyzed what type of fraud was most prevalent in the most fraud-ridden states. Some areas have out-sized trouble with lotteries. Others have problems with fraud related to personal government documents and debt collection. The government also does a poor job of explaining the differences in these trends from state to state.
