Identity Theft Statistics, Part 1, How Much Money Does the Typical Victim of Identity Theft Lose?

I've written a lot about identity theft over the past year (see my identity theft category for a listing of posts), but not much recently. So I thought I'd make up for lost time by doing a short series on the topic.

I found an interesting article from Money magazine that lists several identity theft statistics -- many of which I found surprising. It's done in a question and answer format, so let's start with the first question:

How much money does the typical victim of identity theft lose?

The answer:

More than two-thirds of ID theft victims didn't lose a dime last year. (Of course, that means some people did end up out of pocket: The average loss was $422 vs. $675 in 2004.) Why? Federal law limits your liability--$50 for credit cards; $500 for debit cards--if you report the fraud within 60 days. And most issuers offer even stronger protections, guaranteeing that you won't be on the hook for any of the bill. The real cost to you is time and stress: It takes the average victim 40 hours of effort to restore his or her good name.

A few thoughts here:

1. Wow. I would have guessed a few thousand dollars would have been the average. $422 seems low, but I guess it makes sense as explained by Money.

2. 40 hours basically doubles your cost if your time is worth $10 per hour. If it's worth more, like I'm guessing is the case for most of us, this will be even a bigger cost/frustration than the actual money lost.

Click here to read part 2 of this series.

Comments

[cory]

I was the victim of identity theft last year. The balance charged in my name was around $600, and it took about 3 hours to get everything straightened out with all of my creditors and the Big Three reporting agencies.

Of those three hours, I don't think a single second was spent during "worthwhile" time. It was all early evening hours when I would have just been watching Jeopardy. I certainly didn't have to adjust my schedule or work or miss a beat there. Everyone I needed to talk to was available 24/7 or close to it.

I think identity theft is so common these days that the powers that be have really streamlined the process for correcting it.

[Andy]

I was a victim of identity theft a few years ago. Whoever stole my identity wasn't able to charge anything. I spent about an hour contacting the three credit bureaus. It was a hassle but not that big of a deal.