UPDATE --same day: This is not a study or a survey-- it's a data dump of all fraud complaints. Of course, the FTC also receives complaints about numerous other (non-fraud) unfair practices, including issues ranging from mistakes in credit reports to debt collector harassment to violations of the Funeral Practices Rule. Their absence from this list does not mean these complaints are lower in rank-- just not counted in fraud statistics. In my view, for every consumer who takes the time to complain, there are often 10-20 or more others standing behind him or her with the same problem. For example, last week's Javelin ID theft survey projected over 8 million victims nationwide -- or more than 32 times the number of actual complaints reported here to the FTC -- annually.

Original post: Consumer complaint lists include categories from sweepstakes scams and pyramid schemes to work-at-home scams (raise marmots in your bathtub! stuff envelopes! make thousands!). These are all still big problems, but for years, identity theft complaints have led the hit parade. According to the FTC's newest fraud study, fully 36% of consumer complaints to the FTC last year concerned identity theft. The next nine categories combined -- from shop-at-home scams to health care complaints -- totaled only 33% of complaints. Under federal law, identity theft includes credit and debit card fraud, which comprised the highest percentage of the id theft complaints:

Credit card fraud (25 percent) was the most common form of reported identity theft, followed by phone or utilities fraud (16 percent), bank fraud (16 percent), and employment fraud (14 percent).