The number of identity theft complaints in the US increased during 2019 by 47%, with a total of 650,000 incidents reported, data from PreciseSecurity.com claims.
Credit card fraud represents the largest type of identity fraud last year, with over 270,000 cases reported.
PreciseSecurity claims identity thieves typically target those who do not report suspicious activity on credit reports or do not check for warning signs of fraud.
In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission Consumer Sentinel Network received over 80,000 reports of credit card fraud, but by 2016, this number had increased by 65% to hit 124,500. The following two years witnessed a slowdown in the rise of incidents, with 133,096 and 157,715 cases in 2017 and 2018, respectively. However, credit card identity thefts jumped up to 271,823 last year.
The report claims that 31,000 of the reports from people said their information was misused on an existing bank account, a decline of 4%. However, more than 246,000 credit card frauds were carried out on new accounts, an increase of 88%.
Finally, the report claims that Americans in their thirties were most at risk, with 74,572 complaints coming from people in the age range, nearly 30% of all cases.
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