According to a report issued in late March by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center, Internet fraud in the U.S. increased by 33% in 2008, rising for the first time in three years. As the country suffers through a deepening recession, early indicators for 2009 are equally foreboding, with February to March 2009 showing a 50% increase in reported Internet fraud complaints.

"These numbers are shocking, but given that the vast majority of incidents go unreported, the threat of identification theft is actually much more serious than even these figures would lead us to believe," says Justin Yurek, President of ID Watchdog, Inc., the most comprehensive consumer identity monitoring service available.

Internet fraud includes everything from phony sales on auction and classified sites such as eBay Inc. and craigslist.com to smaller scale version of the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by disgraced New York financier Bernard Madoff. One new Internet identity theft scam involves e-mails that have the appearance of originating from the FBI or other federal agencies seeking the recipient's bank account information in order to help with illegal wire transfer investigations.

"This report underscores the rampant growth of identity theft threats across the board from both high-tech but also low-tech sources," says Mr. Yurek. "With ever-evolving methodologies used by identity thieves, the average consumer requires a broad-based protection services to help monitor for instances of fraud."

Identity theft is now the fastest-growing crime in the United States-with nearly ten million Americans victims of some form of identity fraud each year. And, even if consumers make conscious efforts to protect their credit card information, fully 80% of identity theft is unrelated to credit fraud. Phone and utilities fraud, bank and loan fraud, employment and government document fraud, and medical records fraud represent perhaps even more pernicious forms of ID crime.

"A compromised identity can follow a person for years, preventing him or her from securing employment, tagging them as a criminal offender, throwing them into a higher tax bracket, or worse," says Mr. Yurek. "And, while most identity theft protection services focus solely on ID monitoring, that is just half the story. As Internet fraud and identity theft crime becomes more and more prevalent, the need for a consumer advocate in this space has never been more pressing." Visit https://irgnews.com/coi/IDW.V to learn more.