With still a few days left of 2023, the statistics for identity theft are already quite alarming. In fact, 2023 is on track to exceed 1 million identity theft complaints — considerably outnumbering any pre-pandemic year on record, dating back to 2001.
Recent statistics from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report just under 805,000 cases of identity theft for 2023 through September 30. Of those cases, nearly 40% can be categorized as credit card fraud. Fortunately, the total number of cases reported in 2023 are trending down from 2020 and 2021, which reached approximately 1.4 million complaints for each year. Despite this, 2023 identity theft complaints are far higher than any pre-pandemic year dating back to 2001.
Identity theft is a growing problem in the United States. Here are some quick facts:
- The FTC received 5.7 million total fraud and identity theft reports, 1.4 million of which were identity theft cases
- Government Documents or Benefits Fraud tops the list of identity theft types with 395,948 reported cases
- The median loss of fraud cases for victims is about $500
- Total losses are estimated to be $10.2 billion
Looking back at 2022, the Federal Trade Commission reported receiving 1.1 million identity theft reports. The same report also reveals the states that produced the most identity theft reports in 2022.
The FTC also identified the 10 states with the mo9st identity theft, organizing states by identity theft cases reported per 100,000 people.
It’s established that identity theft is growing. Is it common to be a repeat victim? In a recent survey, U.S. News & World Report asked 2,000 U.S. adults — all of whom had experienced identity theft — about their experiences with identity fraud, social media identity theft, SMS phishing, identity theft precautions they take now, and more. While nearly three-fourths (73%) of our survey respondents said they experienced one case of identity theft, more than a quarter (27%) said they faced identity fraud more than once.
Some more key insights:
- Recorded instances of identity theft have soared by 584% over the last 20 years. In the last decade, Louisiana, Delaware and Pennsylvania saw the largest increase in identity theft reports per 100,000 people.
- Thirty-somethings reported identity theft more frequently than any other age group in 2022, accounting for almost 26% of all reported cases.
- There were 441,822 cases of credit card fraud reported over the past year, making it the most common type of ID theft in 2022. In the United States alone, credit card fraud losses are projected to exceed $12.5 billion within the next two years.
With online shopping continuing to trend upwards, and anticipated to hit a record $1 trillion, the credit card fraud trend will only worsen.
The FTC offers the following tips:
- Protect your information from scammers online and on your phone with multi-factor authentication
- Never give out your personal information to someone who calls, emails or texts
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