ID theft on the rise, but costs down - Phoenix Business Journal:
The number of reported identity theft cases jumped 22 percent from 2007 to 2008 in the U.S., to 9.9 million, according to Javelin Strategy and Research, but the financial impact on victims has dropped. Editor's note: Financial impact on "individual victims" has dropped...because there's 22% more of them.
The cost per incident -- including unrecovered losses and legal fees -- fell 31 percent, to less than $500, the San Francisco firm reports.Identity fraud is defined as the unauthorized use of another person’s personal information to achieve illicit financial gain.
The survey says almost half of the cases are linked to stolen wallets, while only 11 percent of the victims had their identities stolen over the Internet. (Editor's Note: I expect that number to jump, maybe even double this year, until there's end-to-end encryption) Heartland will contribute as will other breaches this year.
We still don't know what's going on with Adele Services either. See: (Major Credit Card Hack Starting?)
Women were 26 percent more likely to be victims of identity theft.
“The good news is research shows consumers have more control than they may think and more of them are actively taking steps to protect themselves,” said James Van Dyke, president and founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, in a company statement. “Additionally, the financial industry has made significant strides to resolve fraud incidents for their customers and put stronger controls in place to limit fraud, which is lessening the impact of this crime”
Javelin Strategy & Research has been researching identity fraud for five years with 24,000 U.S. respondents involved in its survey. In October, nearly 4,800 telephone interviews were conducted to for the study.
