Fraudsters can open new accounts, credit cards, and loans in your name. You can lose your health care benefits (i.e., medical identity theft). Hackers can “own” your email and other accounts (account takeovers). You'll have to repair your credit score.
Identity thieves may drain your bank and investment accounts, open new credit lines, get utility service, steal your tax refund, use your insurance information to get medical treatments, or give police your name and address when they are arrested.
Fascinating Identity Theft Facts. Around 1 in 15 people become victims of identity fraud. Americans are most likely to have their identities stolen.
In 2021-22: 8.1% of persons (1.7 million) experienced card fraud. 2.7% of persons (552,000) experienced a scam. 0.8% of persons (159,600) experienced identity theft.
Around 1 in 3 Americans have experienced identity theft (Proofpoint) According to recent data, approximately 33% of US citizens have been victims of identity theft at some point in their lives. That's more than double the global average.
Fraudsters can open new accounts, credit cards, and loans in your name. You can lose your health care benefits (i.e., medical identity theft). Hackers can “own” your email and other accounts (account takeovers). You'll have to repair your credit score.
If you're facing identity theft, know that it is possible to overcome the issue — but it may take some time. Just ask one of our identity specialists, like Vera Tolmachoff, Restoration Manager at Allstate Identity Protection. "It can take days, months, or even years to untangle identity theft," says Tolmachoff.
Once an identity thief has your details, they can apply for credit cards, loans, and bank accounts in your name. From there, they may keep the money they borrowed and leave it up to you to foot the bill. In some instances, the lender may cover the losses if you're a victim of financial identity theft.
If you've been a victim of Identity theft, contact police on 131 444 for further advice and assistance. You should also contact your financial institution. The NSW Government established ID Support NSW to help people understand and prevent identity crime.
The answer may surprise you – while everyone should be aware of identity theft, children and the elderly are at an especially high risk of becoming victims.
Identity thieves almost never get caught
In a study done in 2006, “only 1 in 700 identity theft suspects were arrested by federal authorities (0.14%).” Just to provide some perspective and comparison, 44.3% of violent crime suspects were arrested as well as 15.8% of alternative property crimes.
In order to protect consumers, the US government has identified 5 categories of identity theft red flags and a total of 26 specific red flags as part of the Red Flags Rule regulation to help businesses detect and prevent identity theft in their day to day business operations.
Identity thieves and fraudsters can use your personal information to take over your accounts, use your accounts, open new accounts, file tax returns or even get medical procedures in your name.
Once they have your personal information (such as your ID, Social security number, etc.), they can steal your identity and access your bank account. If you're on the job hunt, it's a good idea to set up fraud and credit monitoring to make sure no one is using your credentials for the wrong reasons.
First let's clear up one myth - giving out your bank account number and BSB is fine. "There is no issue in giving out your BSB/account details as it's only possible to deposit funds rather than withdraw funds," an ING spokesperson told Money. "If an unauthorised debit occurs then the debiting institution is liable."
Change the passwords, pin numbers, and log in information for all of your potentially affected accounts, including your email accounts, and any accounts that use the same password, pin, or log in information. Contact your police department, report the crime and obtain a police report.
If you've been the victim of identity theft, and someone has stolen your Social Security number or personal data to file taxes, open credit accounts, or make charges you didn't authorize, you can find out who committed this illegal act. There's no 100% foolproof way to catch an identity thief.
You should review your bank account statements regularly; if you see unknown purchases, that could be a sign that your identity has been stolen. Check credit reports. Similarly, monitor your credit reports from all three credit-reporting bureaus for any unknown accounts or inaccurate information.
What is the Average Cost of Identity Theft? Most victims, according to the ITRC, lose less than $500. The FTC reports that the median amount of money lost to identity theft is $800.
The wide-range of identity theft-related crimes makes it hard to put a clear timeframe on recovery. However, on average, it can take over six months and 100–200 hours of your time to discover, resolve, and recover from the effects of identity theft [*]. But that's just the average.
Physical Theft: examples of this would be dumpster diving, mail theft, skimming, change of address, reshipping, government records, identity consolidation. Technology-Based: examples of this are phishing, pharming, DNS Cache Poisoning, wardriving, spyware, malware and viruses.