ID Theft Can Be Fatal: A Rising Number of Victims Report Suicidal Thoughts

pcmag.com:

Identity theft is so devatasting that a growing number of victims contemplate taking their own lives, according to the Identify Theft Resource Center's (ITRC) annual Consumer Impact Report.

After years of 2-4% of identity-crime victims reporting that they'd had suicidal thoughts, that number jumped to 8% in the first year of the pandemic (2020), and as of this year, it has doubled again to 16%. That's more than triple the national average for all non-homeless US residents.

"The rise of sophisticated social engineering scams—phishing, Business Email Compromise (BEC), social media account takeover to name a few—is a likely contributor to the stress of victims," says ITRC CEO Eva Velasquez. "Once almost laughably bad spoofed websites, texts and emails are now letter perfect and have been joined by highly sophisticated voicemail and direct contact attacks. This is before we’ve seen generative AI deployed at scale."

In other findings, a quick look at the numbers reveals that most people who self-report identity crimes are female (61%), 45 years or older (50%), and have an annual income of less than $50,000 (37%). More people with some college or a college degree contact the ITRC than those with a high school diploma or less. Here's an infographic with key highlights from the report.

Of the victims who self-reported to the ITRC, 41% said their identity was stolen more than once; that percentage is even higher for general consumers, at 69%.

Far too many people leave their ID-crime issues unresolved—65% of those who reported to the ITRC haven't followed up. That's compared with 10% for members of the public who reported their victimization elsewhere. The majority, 43%, worked to correct it in the first week.

The impact report