Identity theft continues to be a major problem in the U.S…
The number one complaint to the Federal Trade Commission is identity theft – for the sixth year in a row. Costing consumers $5 billion annually, the Federal Trade Commission reports that 10 million people in the U.S. have their identities stolen each year. Over 153,000,000 records containing personal and financial information were involved in security breaches that led to fraud from January 2005 to April 2007.
Adjusted for population, States showing the most cases were Arizona, Nevada and California. The top metropolitan areas for ID theft were Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (178 per 100,000 population), Las Vegas-Paradise, NV, (159 per 100,000), and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, (146 per 100,000). The cities reporting the most identity theft victims were Washington DC area (190 per 100,000), Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL area (187 per 100,000), and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (186 per 100,000).
The most common type of theft reported was credit card fraud, followed by utility or phone fraud, bank fraud, employment related theft, sweepstake scams and advanced loan schemes. Internet auction fraud, foreign money offers and shop-at-home catalog sales were also included in the list of top complaints. Of the credit card fraud reports, 15% were new accounts opened illegally in the victim’s name. Approximately half of all identity theft victims did not know how their information was stolen.
The number of hours identity theft victims spend resolving their credit problems varies widely. A 2007 Identity Fraud Survey Report by Javelin Strategy & Research reports that theft from new accounts takes much longer to discover than theft from existing accounts. It usually takes a victim 134 days from opening to dicover fraud on a new account – while existing accounts only take 42 days until discovery. This is probably we, according to the FTC, consumers who experienced new account ID theft spent an average of $1,180 to deal with the problem; but only $160 to remedy existing accounts.