Financial Reflections

Just how safe is your identity?  Identity theft is all over the news, but I wanted to learn a little more about how prevalent this crime actually was, so I did a little research and came up with some stats to make it seem a little more real, and it wasn’t exactly encouraging.

Prevalence of Identity Theft: By The Numbers

• The average amount obtained during a theft was $1,882: That’s quite a bit. The good news is that banks will usually cover the charges if identity theft happens.  The bad news is you’re in for a bit of a shock once you find out it’s going on.
• Victims had to pay about $371 out-of-pocket expenses: There still are expenses, such as payment of fraudulent debt, wages lost, legal fees and other costs.
• 1 in 10 had to spend at least 55 hours resolving the problems caused by identity theft:  Many didn’t have that bad of a problem, but those who got hit hard took a long time to set things right.  1 in 20 had to spend 130 hours or more!
• The total obtained by thieves was $15.6 billion: That’s getting close to government bailout size money.  To put it in perspective, that’s almost six times what Forbes magazine says Donald “You’re Fired” Trump is worth.
• 8.3 million people in the US were ID theft victims: That’s as if the entire populations of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia had their identities stolen in a single year.

I got these stats from the Federal Trade Commission’s 2006 summary. That’s a little dated, but based on current news reports and how easily your identity is stolen, I only assume that identity theft is more prevalent.  Not to mention all the ways identity thieves conspire to sell your stolen data these days.

Fortunately, there are things you can do, such as check your credit reports yearly at www.annualcreditreport.com or by signing up with a credit monitoring service, such as one of Equifax’s credit monitoring products (that’s what I use) or one of the many others out there.  I want to be able to catch things before they get out of hand.

What’s your experience with identity theft?  Got any statistics?  Let me know in the comments below…