Texas Ranks Fourth In U.S. Where You're Most Likely To Get Your Identity Stolen
TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - With a total of 73,553 identity theft reports last year, Texas ranks fourth in the country for states where you're most likely to have your identity stolen, according to research from Construction Coverage.
The review site for commercial auto and workers compensation insurance analyzed the latest data from the FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network 2019 Data Book. They ranked states according to the number of identity theft reports per 100K population. That put Texas in the fourth position with 256 identity theft reports per 100K population.
Besides numbers of identity theft reports, researchers also calculated the change in identity theft reports from 2018 to 2019 and the most over-indexed type of identity theft—the category of identity theft that exceeded its respective national share by the greatest amount.
The year-over-year change in identity theft reports for Texas was 63.3%. And the most over-indexed form of identity theft were loan or lease fraud.
The top three states for identity theft were Georgia, Florida and California.
Regardless of location, it's important for residents to stay vigilant about scams that could result in identity theft, especially during a situation like the coronavirus pandemic.
If you are a victim, here's some advice:
- Contact your bank, credit card companies and credit bureaus.
- Consider placing fraud alerts and credit freezes.
- Order copies of your credit reports.
- Contact the authorities.
For more information on how to prevent identity theft and what to do if it happens to you, click here.
