Yesterday marked the beginning of National Protect Your Identity Week, sponsored by the Better Business Bureau and National Foundation for Credit Counseling. The BBB, NFCC and coalition members will host hundreds of free identity theft protection educational and shredding events in communities across the nation and many will feature professional speakers and experts on ID theft prevention and recovery. Find more information by visiting the NFCC’s web site, where you can even take a quiz to see how at-risk you may be.

Identity theft prevention and resolution is something we live with every day here at Europ Assistance USA while protecting and assisting some of the 10 million Americans victimized each year. We provide ongoing protection to our customers and help them straighten out any damages that occur if they do fall prey to one of the fastest growing crimes around.

Think it only happens to other people? The following statistics say the danger is closer than you might think:

• 11.1 million victims (1 in 20 US adults) of identity theft in 2009, a 12% increase over 2008¹
• Identity theft costs $54 billion per year, a 12.5% increase over 2008
• Fraudulent new credit card accounts represented 39% of all identity fraud vs. 33% in 2008
• 29% of victims reported new cell phone accounts fraudulently opened in their name
• Small business owners suffered identity fraud at 1.5 times the rate of other adults (small office / home office business owners use personal accounts when making business transactions and make more transactions)
• The average victim spends 21 hours repairing the damage¹
• It takes 26-32% of victims between 4 to 6 months to resolve the problems caused by identity theft²
• Average identity fraud victim pays $373 and average identity fraud case is $4,841¹
• 340 million records containing sensitive personal information have been involved in security breaches in the US since 2005³

While statistics tell part of the story, we feel you should also hear more personalized accounts of victims from our very own family of customers.

For the four remaining days of this week, we’ll highlight a different kind of identity theft situation  — how it happened and what was at risk, as well as how we were able to help alleviate some of the pain and protect the customer moving forward.

In the meantime, check out our list of identity theft protection tips so you can make sure you’re doing all you can to protect yourself.

We’ll share our first story tomorrow. We hope this important week help you better understand the risk, prevention and resolution aspects of identity theft.

1. Javelin Strategy & Research, 2010. 2. ITRC Aftermath Study, 2004. 3. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, 2009

• Identity Theft Story #2: ID Theft by a Family Member
• Identity Theft Story #3: Member Lured by Phishing Scam
• Fact and Myth on Fraud Alerts
• Identity Theft Customer Story #1: Fraudulent Credit Card Charges
• ID Theft Tip of The Week: Medical Identity Theft