Recently, a family friend shared with me the horrible tale about the identity theft she had experienced. She told how it took two years to reestablish her credit rating. She shared the financial costs involved in clearing her name. She talked about the emotional toll this process had taken on her family. The anger they felt and the hopeless feeling that it would never get resolved. What a painful experience for her and her family.
While no one can offer guarantees you will never experience identity theft, I thought it would be helpful to share some information about this security risk. At Lloyd Security, we are always trying to make people’s lives more secure. So in my next couple of posts, let me share with you thoughts about identify theft, what it is and what we can do to prevent it from happening. We can make the world a safer place.
What is identity Theft?
In a nutshell, identify theft is a where someone steals another person’s information to access private resources such as credit cards, medical records or financial accounts. This has expensive consequences for the victims.
Facts about identity Theft
Here are some of the statistics you need to know about Identity theft:
- One in ten Americans are affected each year by identity fraud
- 1.6 million households have had their bank records compromised
- US businesses lose 54 Billion dollars annually to identity fraud
- The average amount taken from the victims is $4841.00
- Victim’s average out of pocket expenses is from $851-1378.00
- Nearly 50% of the victims learn about the theft within 3 months
- 15% don’t learn about identity theft for four years
- 70% of the victims experience difficulties clearing their credit rating
Clearly these statistics show that identity theft is a huge problem with financial and time consequences. These statistic do not tell the emotional consequences identity theft has on the person and their family! In the next post I will share more about the new forms of identity theft and what you can do to make your identity more secure.
Share your biggest question about identity theft?