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Identity theft is easily one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S. and worldwide. As a matter of fact, over 10 million people’s identity’s are stolen each year. My sister was a victim of minor identity theft and it took her countless hours to rectify the problem. The sad but true fact is that nobody seems to worry about it much until it happens to them. This is true about many things in life and I’m as guilty of it as the next guy but after hearing my sister’s horror stories about her relative minor problems with identity theft I’m seriously considering signing up with LifeLock.
Here are some very scary stats about identity theft followed by a few simple ways you can protect yourself.

Discovery of Victimization

• 9-18% of victims can take 4 years or even longer to discover that they are actually victims of identity theft.
• 38-50% of victims will find out about the identity theft within 3 months of the theft starting.

Time Involved in Being a Victim

• Typically victims will spend anywhere from just 3 hours to over 5,000 hours repairing the damage done by identity theft. This massive difference is another scary aspect of the crime. It all depends on the severity of the theft. A simple stolen credit card will take less time to rectify than someone that has used your social security card to completely become you!
• 25-35% of identity theft victims will spend a period of 4-6 months dealing with their case before fixing the problem and 10-23% report dealing with their case for 7 months up to a year.

Monetary Costs of Identity Theft

• Victims will lose on average somewhere betwen $1,800 and $14,000 in wages dealing with their cases.
• Victims will spend an average of $850 to $1,375 in expenses.
• An estimated 40% of business costs for individual cases of identity theft exceed $15,000. According to the Aberdeen Group, about $221 billion a year is lost by businesses worldwide due to identity theft.

Practical and Emotional Costs of Identity Theft

• 47% of victims have trouble getting credit or a loan as a result of identity theft.
• 19% of victims have higher credit rates and 16% have higher insurance rates because of identity theft.
• 11% of victims say identity theft has a negative impact on their abilities to get jobs.
• 70% of victims have trouble getting rid of (or never get rid of) negative information in their records.
• 40% of victims experience stress in their family lives as a result of displaced anger and frustration over the identity theft.
• 45% of victims feel denial or disbelief.
• 85% of victims anger and rage.
• 45% of victims feel defiled by the identity thief.
• 42% of victims feel an inability to trust people because of the identity theft.
• 60% of victims feel unprotected by the police.

Uses of Victim Information

• More than one third of victims report that identity thieves committed cheque account fraud.
• 66% of victims’ personal information is used to open a new credit account in their name.
• 28% of victims’ personal information is used to purchase cell phone service
• 12% of victims end up having warrants issued in their name for financial crimes committed by the identity thief.

Imposter Characteristics and Relationships to the Victim

• 43% of victims believe they know the person who stole their identity
• 14-25% of victims believe the imposter is someone who is in a business that holds their personally identifying information.
• The most common reported perpetrator in cases where a child’s identity is stolen is the child’s parent.
• 16% of identity theft victims are also victims of domestic harassment/abuse by the same perpetrator. These victims believe that the identity theft is used as another way for the abuser to continue and demonstrate his harassment and control.

Responsiveness to victims

• Overall, police departments seem to be the most responsive to victims of identity theft, with 58% taking down a report on the victim’s first request.
• 1/3 of victims have to send dispute information repeatedly to credit reporting agencies.
• Only 1/5 of victims find it easy to reach someone in a credit reporting agency after receiving their credit report.
• 20% of victims will have the misinformation and errors removed from their credit report after their first request for the credit reporting agency to do so.

Click Here to read about the Important Ways to Protect Yourself From Identity Theft.

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