From the News You Can Use Archives 03/05/07

Identity Fraud Is on the Decline but Young People Are Most Likely Victims
By Ian Crawford, Web Communications Editor

Identity fraud declined in several key areas last year according to The 2007 Identity Fraud Survey Report by Javelin Strategy & Research. However, younger adults, like many of those attending higher education institutions, are most at risk of ID fraud.

The survey polled 5,000 consumers by telephone and the results show some positive trends:

• 3.7 percent of adult Americans were victims of ID fraud in 2006, down from 4 percent in 2005 and 4.7 percent in 2003
• ID fraud cost $49.3 billion in 2006, down from $55.7 billion in 2005
• The number of victims of new account fraud, when criminals open a new account using the stolen ID, was 1.0 percent of all respondents in 2006, down from 1.5 percent in 2005
• Average fraud amount in 2006 was $7,260, down from $10,000 in 2005, as victims were able to catch the fraud more quickly

However, the report also highlighted some worrying trends:

• Younger American adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are most at risk of ID fraud, reporting an incident rate of 5.3 percent, compared to a rate of 3.7 percent for the overall U.S. adult population
• More than half of younger American adults reporting ID fraud also said they knew their perpetrator – a friend, neighbor or in-house employee – compared to just 23 percent of overall respondents
• Victims in this age group are less likely to utilize even the most basic prevention techniques available to consumers today:
• Shredding documents
• Opting to receive bills and financial statements electronically rather than by mail
• Using antivirus, anti-spyware or firewalls on their computers
• Reviewing credit reports regularly

The report also highlighted a fraud detection digital divide:

• Americans earning less than $15,000 a year are least likely to be victims of ID fraud with a 2.8 percent incident rate, compared to 7.3 percent for those earning more than $150,000
• However, the lowest income population takes the longest to uncover the fraud, taking an average 70 percent longer to detect the fraud than those in the higher income population
• When they detect the fraud, the lower income population spent 75 percent more time, or more than 44 hours on average, in resolving the fraud than the higher income population

Identity Fraud Is Dropping According to New Research - Javelin Strategy & Research

Story posted March 5, 2007.

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