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Friday, March 31, 2006
Identity theft hit 3.6 million in U.S.
About 3 percent of households were hit by some sort of ID theft during the first six months of 2004, according a DOJ. According to a comprehensive survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), identity theft is affecting millions of households in the U.S each year and costing an estimated $6.4 billion per year. The data comes from the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, which interviews members of 42,000 households across the country every six months to better understand the nature, frequency and consequences of crime. The DOJ has been compiling this information for more than 30 years, but this marks the first time it has asked households about identity theft, said survey author Katrina Baum, a statistician with the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Of the other identity theft victims, about 25 percent had banking and other types of accounts used without permission, 15 percent had their personal information misused, and about 12 percent faced a combination of several types of ID theft.
Based on these numbers, the nationwide estimated loss during the six months of the study amounted to $3.2 billion, for an annualized total of $6.4 billion.
“It’s usually a phenomenon that’s experienced by the young and those in urban households,” she said.