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ID Theft: The Real Numbers
by Mary Beth Guard
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the crime of identity theft has been proliferating at an alarming pace, but if your bank is trying to determine how important it is to pull together tools like the I.D. checking guides, PLEASE ID verification reminder cards, and nondocumentary verification technologies to fight it, you'll want to study the latest FTC data on the problem.
On September 3, 2003, the Federal Trade Commission released the results of a survey it conducted of a group of 4,057 randomly chosen U.S. adults during March and April, 2003. Using the responses, the research firm employed by FTC extrapolated from the data what the numbers would be for the population as a whole. Projections based upon the responses indicate that:
- 9.9 million individuals have been victims of identity theft in the past year.
- 27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years.
- It's not just credit-related fraud that results. New checking or savings accounts were obtained using the personal information of 3% of all victims.
- 15% of all ID Theft victims reported that the identity thief used their information in non-financial
ways. [Which means a whopping 85% used their information in financial ways!]
- The average loss per incident of identity theft to businesses (mainly financial institutions) is $4,800.
- 52% of the victims learned of the ID theft by monitoring their accounts.
- 26 percent of victims were alerted to the ID theft by companies such as credit card issuers or banks.
- 8% of ID Theft victims found out they had been victimized when they applied for credit and were turned down.
- Almost 25% of the victims reported their identity was stolen by use of information that was lost or stolen -- from stolen mail to lost or stolen credit cards, checkbooks, or social security cards.
- 4% of all victims (about 400,000 in the last year) became victims of identity fraud due to stolen mail.
- The number of ID Theft victims who reported discovering the misuse of their personal
information within the last year was 41% greater than the number discovering misuse
between 1 and 2 years ago.
- When asked about the amount of time they spent resolving problems stemming from the
misuse of their personal information, the median amount of time reported by victims was 2
to 9 hours. Astonishingly, 6% of all victims spent over 240 hours of their time working to resolve problems stemming
from Identity Theft!
The survey report itself is 93 pages long and contains a wealth of data on issues ranging from the length of time before discovery of the fraud to the concern of victims over whether such fraud is likely to recur.
One good news stat:
Among those who had just one existing credit card misused or who had one new credit card
account opened in their name (56% of all Identity Theft victims), those who reported
contacting the credit card company were overwhelmingly satisfied with the company’s
response – 73% were “very satisfied” with how the credit card company responded to the
report of misuse.
One piece of bad news is that victims do not necessarily take sufficient action to put credit reporting agencies on notice of the fraud. The survey results indicated that among Identity Theft victims, only 22% said they contacted at least one credit bureau. Of those
who contacted a credit bureau, 25% contacted a single credit reporting agency, 12%
contacted two, and 57% contacted three or more agencies. (The remaining 5% said they
did not know how many credit bureaus they contacted.)
Read the survey results. Decide what further actions your institution can take to help reduce the incidence of this horrid crime.
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Copyright, 2003, Bankers Online. First published on BankersOnline.com 09/03/03.
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