Survey Highlights $3,313 Average Loss Per Identity Theft Victim in the US

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), millions of Americans get affected by fraud and lose billions because of it. In 2023, Americans lost $10 billion in fraud, mostly due to identity theft or $1.8 million every year. All About Cookies conducted a survey among 1000 Americans to find out how many of them have been affected by identity theft, how they became a victim of identity theft and how long did it take for them to recover from it. According to FTC’s 2022 and 2023 Consumer Sentinel Data Books, the state which is most compromised with identity theft is Connecticut, with a 68% increase in identity theft from the year prior. It is followed by Massachusetts (+55%), Iowa (+44%) and Nebraska (+30%).

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ report shows that 12% of people over the ages of 16 knew that their identities had been stolen and 46% of people knew someone close to them who had been a victim of identity theft. 14% of the respondents in the survey said that they themselves had their identity stolen in the past. The victims said that the average cost of identity theft to them was $3313.

There are some common methods that identity thieves use to steal information from victims. The respondents were asked how they got their data stolen which contributed to identity theft, with 38% saying they got their data stolen from a data breach on a website (38%), followed by stolen or missing credit card (16%) and official documents (13%). There were also 27% of the respondents who said that they don't know how identity thieves stole their data. 45% of the respondents said that identity thieves opened new accounts from their data and 42% that identity thieves used their data to steal from financial accounts. 20% of the identity thieves also used victim’s data to take out loans.

The survey also asked the respondents how they found out their identity had been compromised, 46% responded that they received a credit card monitoring alert and 42% said that they noticed their money missing. 50% of the respondents said that they were using ID theft monitoring at the time of the theft and were alerted by it. 36% of the respondents said that it took them an average a week or less to know that their identity had been stolen while 17% got to know about it in one to three months. 51% of the victims of identity theft got to know about their identity being stolen within two weeks of the crime.

23% of the respondents said that they still haven't recovered from identity theft while 20% said it took them a week or less. 50% of victims figured out their identity had been stolen within two weeks. 48% of the respondents of the survey said that they don't have enough protection against identity theft.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World