Identity Theft Statistics

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Monday, February 26th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

Identity Theft Statistics Are Alarming

Identity theft statistics for the US are very alarming. This consumer crime seems to have taken a hold all over the country from which there is no respite. Take for example the identity theft statistics released for the year of 2003 which indicated that one in every four households fell prey to identity thieves in the previous five years. These worrying figures came out when the federal government attempted to find out how rampant identity theft really was commission a study of 4,000 adult respondents by the Federal Trade Commission. It was found that that identity theft affected 10 million people in the country in just that one year.

The unbelievable cost of identity theft

Five billion US dollars is the estimated amount lost from out of pocket expenses by identity. For businesses and financial institutions the identity theft statistics showed a lost of almost $48 billion US. All figures are just for one year. These identity theft statistics further reveal, it is believed, that there were 9.9 million victims and, that average loss to businesses for each victim amounted to 4,800 US dollars. Businesses suffered losses totalling $47.6 billion and the average out-of-pocket expenses totalled five hundred dollars per victim. These and other identity theft statistics point to a growing crime wave in this area.

Cases where the identity of a person is stolen to open a new account or where there are some fraudulent charges on an exisiting credit card account all are examples of identity theft. Since many people often do not report the identity theft it is also quite difficult to obtain accurate data pertaining to such crimes and according to surveys only one fourth of identity theft victims actually reported the crime. The best one can hope from such identity theft statistics is to obtain an estimate of the exact figures.

This might be only the tip of the iceberg

The information available regarding identity theft statistics indicates that almost 25 percent of all victims reported having their personal information as lost or stolen but only eleven percent said they were aware that their identities had been stolen prior to knowing that they had become identity theft victims.

Another interesting identity theft statistic is that most occurred in the South and West of America, while the Midwest recorded the lowest incidence of identity thefts.

Identity theft has snowballed to such a worrying proportion that unless stringent measures are taken right now, the situation can only get worse. Incidentally, of the identity theft victims, 12% reported occurrence over 6 months and 25% reported information misuse in just one day. Because of this there is a need for tougher legislation. Perhaps getting credit might be made tighter which might help to reduce that alarming level of theft as demonstrated by these statistics.

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