Sixty-six percent of U.S. adults say they worry "frequently" or "occasionally" about being a victim of identity theft

Being a victim of car theft or home burglary when away rank a distant second

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Identity theft debuts on Gallup's Crime survey as Americans' top-ranked crime concern. Sixty-six percent of U.S. adults say they worry "frequently" or "occasionally" about being a victim of identity theft, higher than the reported anxiety about 11 other types of crime and the only crime that a majority worry about at least occasionally.

Gallup trends measuring Americans' fear of being victims of specific crimes date back several decades, but for each of 10 crimes, the question has been updated annually on Gallup's Crime survey since 2000. Terrorism was added to the list in 2001, and 2009 marks the first year identity theft has been included.

Men and women are about equally likely to say they worry about identity theft, but there are differences by income. Americans in households earning less than $30,000 per year are significantly less likely to say they worry frequently or occasionally about this crime than are those making higher amounts.

However, other data in the Oct. 1-4 survey suggest that identity theft is not related to income. According to respondents' self-reports of their crime victimization in the past year, 12% of low-income Americans -- identical to the percentage in high-income households -- say that they or another member of their household was the victim of identity theft in the past year. (Full report at www.gallup.com)

There is one comment in Lydia Saad's story that is incorrect. She wrote: "Although most victims can quickly undo the damage by canceling their credit cards,..." This may be true for some financial identity theft but financial only is about 22-25% of all identity theft. Canceling a credit card will not help if you are a victim of social security, drivers license, criminal or medical identity theft which was up 400% last year.

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