When the long-awaited federal and state health insurance exchange websites launched Oct. 1, industry experts everywhere predicted an array of problems — slow load times, inconvenient registration requirements and even site crashes — many of which came true. Now that the dust from the initial pandemonium has settled, it's clear there’s one big issue with the exchange sites few experts were able to predict: fraud.

So far, most of the fraud has been of the information-gathering variety; consumers are directed to websites almost identical to the federal or state exchange sites and instructed to enter basic information for registration. Some sites even ask consumers to enter financial information, such as credit card or bank account numbers, but according to experts, scammers will take whatever information they can get.

“Scammers go after whatever personal data they can get, including Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, and, in some cases, even security questions and answers,” explains Greg Mancusi-Ungaro, chief marketing officer at BrandProtect, an organization that provides corporations with tools to monitor online activities that misuse or misappropriate corporate brands.