ID Theft Continues To Rise

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released the results of their annual identity theft survey – Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).  They surveyed approximately 46,000 heads of households nationwide, asking about their households’ experience with identity theft. Identity theft has increased substantially between 2010 and 2005.

Number impacted

Approximately 8.6 million U.S. households had some type of identity theft in 2010 compared to 6.4 million households in 2005, which was a 34 percent increase.  According to the Department of Justice, “identity theft is the unauthorized use or attempted use of an existing credit card or another type of existing account, the unauthorized use of personal information to open a new account or for another fraudulent purpose, or a combination of these.”

The main reason for the increase was the unauthorized use of an existing credit card.  The number of households affected by this was 5.5 million in 2010 compared to 3.6 million in 2005, which was a 53 percent increase. The proportion of households who had another account misused, such as banking, savings or utility account, was unchanged during this time frame at 35 percent. Those whose personal information was misused for the purposes of opening a new account or committing another crime, declined from 23 percent in 2005 to 14 percent in 2010.

Financial loss

In 2010, U.S. household loss due to identity theft was approximately $13.3 billion, with an average household loss of $2,200. Less than 10 percent had their personal information misused to open a new account, but the financial loss represented 30 percent of the total financial loss, averaging $13,200 per household.  Even though over half (54 percent) of identity theft was from the misuse of existing credit cards, the financial loss was 32 percent of the total.  Although identity theft increased from 2005 to 2010, those with no financial losses dropped during this time frame.  In 2010, 24 percent of the households had no financial loss compared to 19 percent in 2005.

Identity theft is increasing and mainly due to unauthorized use of an existing card.  Is it because of the economic conditions?  Nevertheless, you need to safeguard your personal information, credit cards, and bank accounts. One way to monitor your credit cards is to review your statements, order your free credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com, and/or sign up for a credit monitoring service.  If you are a victim of identity theft, it takes time to handle this problem, it can be very costly and it can harm your credit.

Credit Damage Expert, John Ulzheimer, is the President of Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com, the credit blogger for Mint.com, and a Contributor for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.  He is an expert on credit reporting, credit scoring and identity theft. Formerly of FICO, Equifax and Credit.com, John is the only recognized credit expert who actually comes from the credit industry.  Follow him on Twitter here.

Categorised in: Credit Monitoring, Credit Report, Credit Score, Getting Credit, Government, Improving Credit, Money & Identity

This post was written by John Ulzheimer