The Federal Trade Commission said it received more than half-a-million consumer complaints in 2003, as scam artists financed their spending sprees with other people's credit cards and hucksters sold nonexistent products through online auction sites like eBay.

Identity theft--the practice of running up bills or committing crimes in someone else's name--topped the list of complaints with 215,000 reports, up 33 percent from the previous year.

Internet-related fraud accounted for more than half of the remaining complaints, as scammers found victims through Web sites, or spam e-mail, according to the FTC report. Auction fraud was the most prevalent form of Internet scam, the FTC said, followed by complaints about e-commerce and Internet access services.

By Reuters at CNET.

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