Identity Theft
Facts, Polls, Studies

Do you know who is being you right now?

Sadly, 10 million people were hit by identity theft last year. Some 900,000 of them were victimized by their own flesh and blood. It's called Family-on-Family Crime.

Another prevalent crime are the illegal immigrants sneaking into our country and stealing American's names and social security numbers to work and get public assistance. Victims receive huge tax bills from IRS and their state tax agency because it looks like their income doubled.

Identity Theft Statistics

The Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit organization, shares these chilling facts about identity theft:

• 13.3 people become victims of identity theft every minute.
• It takes an average of 600 hours to reverse the damage to your credit history after ID theft.
• Victims suffer increased interest rates on all loans, increased credit card fees, increased insurance premiums, stressful battles with collection agencies, and difficulties finding a job because employers use reports for background checks.
• It takes more than 10 years to undo the fraud on your credit report after ID theft.
• Be vigilant -- do everything you can not to become a victim of Identity Theft.

Under the Radar Theft

Many victims contacting WJFA have reported there is a type of identity theft that is under the radar. It's thieves using your social security number to work under and then you get the bill from IRS and state taxing boards to pay. Also, cellular phone fraud. The thief opens an account in your name and it's not reported to credit agencies, so, it would not be detected unless the thief goes into default.

ID Victims Denied Justice

One in 10 people have been a victim of a fraud and the numbers are increasing dramatically, according to government studies. See WJFA's polls by victims reporting the type of fraud used by stealing your identity and what it has done to their lives.

Yet, prosecutors and law enforcement continue the destructive trend of denying justice to victims then dumping them in to the civil courts, where they are forced to undo the crime against them.

ID Theft victims encounter this paradox even when the guilty person is known. Read the many stories on this web site of people targeted by ID thieves and how every government agency from the FBI to local law enforcement refused to provide justice. See the links to the left under news archives.

ID Theft Made Easy

Banks and merchants lost $48 billion last year to identity theft. The government is fighting back, too.

President Bush recently signed a new federal law on ID theft. Among other things, it specifies that merchants can only put the last five digits of your credit card number on receipts. This is important because one of the ways scam artists target their victims is by dumpster diving.

Businesses throw the trash into the dumpster, which contains receipts with your card number. The new law makes you less vulnerable.

FTC Study Results

In February 2005, the Federal Trade Commission reported, that national and state trends in white-collar crime, reports that 645,000 victims filed complaints.

In 2004, 39 percent of complaints were for Identity Theft versus 61 percent for 2005. Credit card fraud is the most common theft.

California ranked first in the nation for victims (43,839) and third in the nation. Five metropolitan areas in California ranked among the top 15 areas nationally -- San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara.