Statistics: FTC Releases Survey of Identity Theft in the U.S. Study Shows 8.3 Million Victims in 2005

The Federal Trade Commission today released a survey showing that 8.3 million American adults, or 3.7 percent of all American adults, were victims of identity theft in 2005. Of the victims, 3.2 million, or 1.4 percent of all adults, experienced misuse of their existing credit card accounts; 3.3 million, or 1.5 percent, experienced misuse of non-credit card accounts; and 1.8 million victims, or 0.8 percent, found that new accounts were opened or other frauds were committed using their personal identifying information…The survey also gathered information about victims’ out-of-pocket expenses resulting from the theft of their identities. In more than half of the incidents, victims incurred no out-of-pocket expenses. Some victims, however, incurred substantial out-of-pocket expenses – 10 percent of all victims reported out-of-pocket expenses of $1,200 or more.

In addition, the survey asked victims to estimate the amount of time they spent resolving problems caused by the theft. The median time spent resolving problems by all victims was four hours. Ten percent of victims, however, spent at least 55 hours resolving their problems, and half of those spent at least 130 hours.

Direct to Full Text of Report:
Federal Trade Commission: 2006 Identity Theft Survey Report: Prepared for the Commission by Synovate
108 pages; PDF.

Source: FTC

See Also: Statistics: Identity Theft in the U.S., 2005 (BJS)
Released earlier this month.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 12:31 am and is filed under Business and Economics, Source File, Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.