The Federal Trade Commission has released its annual report on fraud complaints filed by consumers. As expected, identity theft tops the list at 36% of all complaints filed. But the actual number of instances of identity theft could be much higher, as for every reported instance and complaint, there may be a dozen others who have been victimized.

Here’s the top 5 listed complaints from the FTC’s Consumer Fraud and Identity Theft Complaint Data report.

1 Identity Theft - 246,035 - 36%
2 Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales - 46,995 - 7%
3 Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries - 45,587 - 7%
4 Internet Services and Computer - 41,243 - 6%
5 Internet Auctions - 32,832 - 5%

See the full list at The FTC website.

Consumer affairs.com is featuring an article about Blue Hippo Funding, a company that sells computers, televisions and other high-end technology to consumers with poor or non-existent credit. The company has a unique credit plan.

I checked out the Blue Hippo website where they advertise a computer system on easy credit terms. There are no credit checks. To qualify, you make a downpayment of $99.00 and then six weekly payments of $39.99. This means you will have paid $338.94 before your computer is shipped, in fact, the website states that it is not even ordered yet. Once you have paid the $338.94 “we can offer to finance the balance of your purchase price, order your computer and have it shipped…”. Still, you may think it sounds like a good deal. But nowhere on this page does it state how many payments you will make after they ship your computer.

Terms seem to change. I found several sites, including Wikipedia, stating that the initial pre-payment period was 13 weeks. Currently the BlueHippo site says 6 weeks. However, the term following the pre-payment is at least 49 weeks and in some cases it is said to be 52 weeks. In any case, the consumer ends up paying over five times the value of the item.

I checked with the Better Business Bureau. Not surprisingly, Blue Hippo has an unsatisfactory records with the BBB.

Bottom line: if you are thinking of doing business with Blue Hippo, check out a few of these informative sites first.

Better Business Bureau

ConsumerAffairs.com

Wikipedia

BlueHippo Ripoff Report at badbusinessbureau.com

When shopping for electronics and big-ticket items such as cameras, TVs and other appliances, we are often faced with strong and seemingly sensible encouragement from the salesman to take out an extended warranty on the product. After all, you’re paying a lot for this advanced technological gadget – don’t you want to protect your investment?

According to Consumer Reports extended warranties are not only not necessary, they are probably money wasted. Most of the products they have tracked have not needed major repairs in the two years since they were purchased and often the cost of the extended warranty is more than paying for a repair, if one is ever needed.

Retailers advise you to take the warranties because they get a large percentage of the price of the warranty. In fact, they make more money on extended warranties than they do on the products they are selling the warranties on.

According to Consumer Reports:

For the consumer, extended warranties are notoriously bad deals because:

* Products seldom break within the extended-warranty window (typically around three years), our data show.

* When electronics and appliances do break, the repair often costs about the same as the cost of the warranty.

Read the rest of the article at Consumer Reports

CNN has an article looking at Consumer Reports’ latest survey on reliability in 2006 and 2007 cars. It makes interesting reading, with some winners you would expect and some surprising losers.

Toyota and Lexus do well but I was amazed that Volkswagen have so many models that owners reported as unreliable. As a result, I wonder just how reliable these surveys are. How were they conducted and what questions were asked? And to what extent has the usual problem with these surveys been overcome – that many owners hesitate to pour scorn on what was their own choice, after all?

These questions are answered in Consumer Reports’ FAQ on the matter. It does seem that they make a good job of their investigations and so we would be wise to take note of their findings when looking for a new car.

Have a read and be prepared for some surprises.