How Does Federal Trade Commission Handle Identity Theft?

FTC refers to the Federal Trade Commission which is a government organisation that protects the consumer rights

. Such government organizations for consumer protection are all over the world and in each country, only names are different. Some call them as FTC; others refer to them as Consumer Courts.

These institutions are part of government but are just section of government which works for consumer rights. Identity thefts are been reported to FTC also. Many people do such things of reporting their identity theft cases to FTC instead of reporting it to police department. It has been observed that after people experience such thefts, most of the people do not report it to department.

They do not report to FTC either. They are just casual about their things. They just inform the service providers of credit cards or bank ATMs if they are stolen. These service providers just blocks the service provided by those credit cards. They do not report this crime to anybody.

This does not help the police to find such criminals. This proves beneficial for the criminals and they get another chance to do such crimes. But if the crimes are reported, police start to trace those criminals and hence they have themselves on the record of the department. Hence if another similar crime occurs, then it is easy to trace them.

How does FTC handle identity theft?

You can file a compliant of identity theft with the FTC. But before you file any compliant, you need to know some important things. FTC gathers complaints about various companies doing frauds, malpractices in the business, identity thefts and also if there is any violence of any rights by the media and more.

If you are related to any crime in any of the above mentioned field, then you can file a compliant with FTC. Once compliant is filed, FTC carries out further procedures of investigations and prosecutions.

All these action that are taken by department are then taken by FTC. It has a secured database called as Consumer Sentinel which is used by worldwide authorities of criminal law enforcements and thousands of civil law enforcement authorities also.

One important thing to remember is that FTC does not resolve individual consumer complaints. They resolve complaints of previously mentioned sectors. If you have an individual compliant about some identity theft due to some criminal which is an individual, then you have to note a compliant with the department.

Other important suggestions

The level of personal information that you provide is up to you. You need not provide all your details to FTC, but the mandatory by them has to be provided. Policies of how to safeguard personal information you are also provided by the FTC. Mandatory information has to be provided because in case of investigation, if you don't provide your name and address correctly, it becomes impossible to carry out further procedures.

Paperwork to be carried out is also reduced by FTC. It is less compared to what you have to carry out when you go for launching a compliant in department. It has become more user friendly and you save considerable amount of time.

by: John Goldman

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