One in Five Aussies fall victim to identity theft: Report

Thursday October 1, 2009

Latest figures have shown a massive rise in the number of credit cards theft and unauthorised bank account access in Australia with a report concluding that around one in five Australians 16 years and older have reported some form of identity theft.

This ranges from stolen or skimmed credit cards, identity theft, illegal access to their private bank accounts and unauthorised use of their PIN.

Figures from the Veda Advantage's Identity Crimes Report, completed by Galaxy Research, report high numbers including:

• Over 1.5 million Australians with credit cards illegally skimmed
• 1.2 million had bank accounts illegally accessed
• Just under 1.2 million Australians had personal mail stolen
• Over one third of Australians who completed the survey had had their bag or wallet lost or stolen, which means that their potential for identity theft is high

When it comes to the rising level of these figures, the difference is significant from year to year with younger Australians thought to be more prone to such crimes. In fact, earlier this year a separate Galaxy Research report for Veda Advantage found that the increase in cases of identity theft rose from 23 per cent (3.8 million) in April 2008 to 26 per cent (4.4 million) in April 2009. Despite these figures, Veda Advantage claims that around 70 per cent of Australians still do not take simple measures to protect themselves.

Kelvin Kirk, Veda Advantage Head of Marketing and Communications, stated in a release from the company that "Australians older than 50 years are less likely to have ever experienced bank account or credit card crime, compared to those aged 25 to 49 years, a quarter of whom have been personally affected by identity crime, including: having bank accounts and credit cards illegally accessed; or mail; and or PIN numbers stolen.

"Credit card crime is especially prevalent, with almost 10% of Australians surveyed falling victim to someone either stealing or skimming their credit card. People aged from 25 to 49 years are the most impacted by mail theft," Mr. Kirk said.

The report went into even greater depth breaking down the trends of credit cards scams and identity theft to see their occurrence rate across various demographics of Australian society. These results included:

• 22 per cent of White-collar Australians are more likely to be victims of credit cards scams and bank account crime with blue collared Australians at 16 per cent
• 9 per cent (1.55 million) have had someone steal or illegally skim their credit card
• 7 per cent have been victim to others illegally accessing their bank accounts
• 7 per cent have had their personal mail stolen
• 5 per cent of Australians have experienced identity theft

On a state-by-state basis the Galaxy Research findings concluded that South Australia was the most prevalent state for credit cards scams and bank account access crimes. The statistics were as follows:

• South Australia - 24 per cent
• Queensland - 22 per cent
• New South Wales - 20 per cent
• Victoria and Tasmania - 18 per cent
• Western Australia - 17 per cent

There are several factors that are believed to have contributed to this rise in credit cards scams and bank account fraud; with the most obvious being the global financial crisis and unemployment rate and the others being that many people just don't do enough to protect themselves against basic scams, according to Mr. Kirk. Read more on Protecting Yourself against Financial Scams for basic tricks you can use to protect yourself against credit cards scams.

"Every credit-active Australian has a credit file, which is like a financial passport. A credit file includes applications for credit over the past five years - from water and mobile services to mortgages, personal loans and credit cards.

"By setting up an alert service, which is linked to your credit file, you can be notified if someone commits identity theft and makes a credit application using your identity documents. This should be a protective routine measure for all credit-active adult Australians."

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