US Federal Trade Commission: about 8 million US people estimated being victims of Identity Theft …

A recent report published by the US Federal Trade Commission, called “Federal Trade Commission – 2006 Identity Theft Survey Report” (the report is available online, here) provides an analysis and estimate of Identity Thefts happened in US, in 2005.

Based on this report, “A total of 3.7 percent of survey participants indicated that they had discovered they were victims of ID theft in 2005. This result suggests that approximately 8.3 million U.S. adults discovered that they were victims of some form of ID theft in 2005”.

Identity thefts have been classified in the following categories:

• New Accounts & Other Frauds
• Misuse of Existing Non-Credit Card Accounts or Account Number
• Misuse of Existing Credit Card or Credit Card Number
  

This report estimates that “The median value of goods and services obtained by the identity thieves for all categories of ID theft was $500. Ten percent of victims reported that the thief obtained $6,000 or more, while 5 percent reported that the thief obtained at least $13,000 in goods and services.
…
In more than 50 percent of ID thefts, victims incurred no out-of-pocket expenses. (Out-of-pocket expenses include any lost wages, legal fees, any payment of fraudulent debts, and miscellaneous expenses such as notarization, copying, and postage.) In the New Accounts & Other Frauds category, the median value of out-of-pocket expenses was $40”.

This report also compares these recent findings against findings of a similar investigation carried out in 2003: “The 2003 survey found that 4.6% of the survey population had experienced ID theft during the one year period before the survey was conducted. The 2006 survey found that 3.7% of the survey population had experienced ID theft during 2005. The difference between the rates is not statistically significant. Given the sample sizes and the variances within the samples, one cannot conclude that the apparent difference between the two figures is the result of a real decrease in ID theft rather than a result of random variation.”

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