Identity theft running rampant, report says



A new study says identity theft fraud hit 3 percent of U.S. households in 2004.
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
A former Park City, Utah, resident was surprised when he learned new credit cards had been issued in his name.
The parents of a 2-year-old Utah girl got an even bigger shock when they were doing business with a credit union and discovered thieves had obtained phony credit cards with their toddler's Social Security number.
These experiences were not unusual. A newly released federal study says identity theft fraud hit at an estimated 3.6 million households, or 3 percent of the total number of households, in the United States in 2004.
Findings
The new federal study, called the National Crime Victimization Survey, found:
The estimated loss reported by the victims totaled $3.2 billion. The average loss was $1,290.
The most common type of identity theft was unauthorized use of credit cards, experienced by about half the victims. Next was the theft of an existing account, such as a bank or a debit card account, followed by the use of personal information to obtain new credit cards or loans.
The most likely targets were households with an annual income of $75,000 or more, households headed by people ages 18 to 24 or households in an urban or suburban area.
Thirty percent of households hit by identity theft discovered it by noticing that money was missing or that unfamiliar charges were listed on an account.
One in four heard about it from a credit bureau.
Based on interviews
The survey, which was conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics from July to December 2004 and released earlier this month, was based on interviews with 40,000 people. This was the first time the study included questions about identity theft.
A new trend appears to be the use of the Social Security numbers of children and deceased people because their fraudulent use is unlikely to be discovered for a long time, Torgensen said. Often the bad credit history pops up only after a young victim tries to buy a first car or get a student loan.

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