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Ten years ago, Staten Island resident Valerie Groysman noticed money disappearing from her bank accounts. She told the bank about the unauthorized withdrawals, shut the accounts down and got the money back. But recently her identity was stolen, again.

"In October I received a letter from a Movado store and a credit card by mail saying that I opened a credit card and I bought merchandise for $5,000 and I called them and told them it wasn't me," Groysman said.

Groysman and her husband shared their story Tuesday as the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau and state and city agencies announced their top consumer complaints for 2009. More than a quarter of the 70,000 complaints to the FTC's New York State office involved identity theft, number one since 2000.

"The bad guys go to great efforts to steal it. They use spyware, they use social engineering, they use phishing and they take that and they sell it. They sell it over and over again and consumers end up losing millions if not billions of dollars each year," said Leonard Gordon of the FTC.

The number two complaint is fraudulent and abusive debt collection practices. At the city's Department of Consumer Affairs, deceptive enrollment in overdraft services by banks topped the list of complaints, costing consumers a billion and a half dollars a year in New York State alone.

"For services that they've never been asked if they wanted, that they never been told how much they cost, they never been told whether they are using them," said DCA Commissioner Jonathan Mintz.

Bank fees and other financial services issues are among the top complaints at the Better Business Bureau as well as complaints about publishing and communications providers.

To avoid becoming a victim of fraud, experts say education is the first line of defense.

"Consumers can take an extra effort to be informed to really be proactive nobody cares about your money more than you do," said Better Business Bureau of New York Metro President and CEO Claire Rosenzweig.

"You should guard your your credit card information, social security information like cash. You should check your credit card statement as soon as you get it each month, you should check your bank account statement regularly," Mintz said.