Identity theft is once more the top complaint received by the Federal Trade Commission, which has released its 2012 annual report of complaints. 2012 marks the first year in which the FTC received more than 2 million complaints overall, and 369,132, or 18 percent, were related to identity theft. Of those, more than 43 percent related to tax- or wage-related fraud.
The report gives national data, as well as a state-by-state accounting of top complaint categories and a listing of the metropolitan areas that generated the most complaints. This includes the top 50 metropolitan areas for both fraud complaints and identity theft complaints.
The remainder of complaint categories making up the top 10 are:
| Number | Percent | |
| Debt collection | 199,721 | 10 percent |
| Banks and Lenders | 132,340 | 6 percent |
| Shop-at-Home and Catalog Sales | 115,184 | 6 percent |
| Prizes, Sweepstakes and Lotteries | 98,479 | 5 percent |
| Impostor Scams | 82,896 | 4 percent |
| Internet Services | 81,438 | 4 percent |
| Auto-Related Complaints | 78,062 | 4 percent |
| Telephone and Mobile Services | 76,783 | 4 percent |
| Credit Cards | 51,550 | 3 percent |
(source: Lauren Saunders, Managing Attorney, National Consumer Law Center, www.nclc.org)