Javelin’s 2022 Identity Fraud Study 1 provides a comprehensive analysis of fraud trends in the context of a changing technological and payments landscape.
Identity fraud is one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises to infiltrate financial services in recent years. Javelin Strategy & Research, in its 19th year of putting together studies of such fraud, continues to unravel the losses experienced by consumer victims of identity fraud to provide prescriptive advice to the financial services industry. The study began in 2003 and serves as the longest-running analysis of identity fraud in the US, with more than 95,000 consumers surveyed.
In 2021, traditional identity fraud losses – those involving any use of a consumer’s personal information to achieve illicit financial gain – amounted to $24 billion and ensnared 15 million US consumers. Losses involving identity fraud scams – involving direct contact with victims by criminals – totalled $28 billion and affected 27 million consumers in the United States. It’s a growing problem that has expanded in new ways since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted wide changes in digital behaviours.
Javelin defines identity fraud scams as any action taken by a criminal to directly influence a consumer to divulge personal information or conduct transactions that expose personal information via faceto-face, phone, text, or email contact. Identity fraud scam victims often recall the exact moment or method that resulted in their victimisation.
The total identity fraud impact, by combining traditional identity fraud and identity fraud scam statistics, resulted in $52 billion of loss affecting 42 million US consumer victims.
The 2022 ID Fraud survey was conducted online among 5,000 US adults over the age of 18; this sample is representative of the US census demographics distribution. Data collection took place from 30 October to 16 November 2021. Data is weighted using 18-plus US Population Benchmarks on age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, census region, and metropolitan status from the most current targets.
1 - https://javelinstrategy.com/2022-Identity-fraud-scams-report
