Native American Newsroom

OFIS Announces National Consumer Protection Week: Identity Theft To Be Highlighted

The Office of Financial and Insurance Services (OFIS) announced the kickoff of the National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW), which is February 6 - 12, 2005. This week will highlight consumer protection and education efforts around the country. The subject of this year’s NCPW is “Identity Theft: When Fact Becomes Fiction”.

”No matter who you are or what you do, your nonpublic personal information is always at risk to be stolen and used by identity thieves,” said OFIS Commissioner Linda A. Watters. “Every year, thousands of people are victims of identity theft and this week will spotlight ways to prevent this from happening to you.”

Identity thieves can obtain this sensitive information and use it without your knowledge to commit fraud or theft. Criminals often gain access to personal records through mail theft, Internet fraud, lost or stolen personal items, burglary, phone scams, eavesdropping, unethical use of public documents, and stolen medical records, as well as many other unscrupulous measures. Everyday transactions can reveal bits of your personal information, including:

bank and credit card account numbers, income, Social Security numbers (SSN), name, address, and phone numbers. Identity theft crimes have been steadily on the rise in America for the past decade. According to a report of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), it received 214,905 identity theft complaints in 2003 (an increase from 161,836 complaints received in 2002 and 86,212 in 2001). Of those identity theft complaints, 6,566 were from Michigan victims. Identity theft is a serious crime, and Governor Granholm recently signed into law strict penalties to combat it.

People whose identities have been stolen can spend months or years — and their hard-earned money — cleaning up the mess the thieves have made of their good name and credit record. Some victims have lost job opportunities, been refused loans for education, housing or cars, or even been arrested for crimes they didn’t commit.

The Federal Trade Commission recently released a report entitled “National and State Trends in
Fraud& Identity Theft: January - December 2004” which discusses consumer complaints and provides consumer complaint statistics. The Michigan information is included below. In the report, Michigan was 31st in the country in terms of consumer fraud complaints per 100,000 population with a total of 10,998 complaints and was 16th in the country in terms of identity theft victims per 100,000 population with 7,307 victims. The Detroit-Warren-Livonia metropolitan area recorded 4,748 consumer fraud complaints and had a ratio of 106.6 consumer fraud complaints per 100,000 persons and was 40th out of 49 major metropolitan areas in the country. The Detroit-Warren-Livonia metropolitan area had 4,406 identity theft victims and had a ratio of 99.0 identity theft victims per 100,000 persons, which was 22nd out of 49 major metropolitan areas in the country. This entire report can be viewed at http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/pubs/Top10Fraud2004.pdf. Michigan Consumer Sentinel Complaint Statistics and Trends appear on page 39 of the report.

For more information about identity theft and resources available, consumers can go to www.consumer.gov/ncpw. This web page has resources and information from federal, state and local governments as well as national advocacy organizations to help reduce the risk of identity theft.