Identity theft declines by 28%, but people lose more money now

According to new stats from Javelin Strategy & Research the number of victims of ID theft has declined by over a quarter in the United States last year. However, individual victims lost more money on average than ever before.

Javelin Strategy & Research published the results of the annual survey of consumer fraud which showed that total annual reported fraud was down to $37 billion in 2010 from $56 billion in 2009, but the average out-of-pocket loss soared to $631 from $387, over 60% increase.

James Van Dyke, the founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, said banks have improved at protecting existing credit card holders but there was still a large problem with criminals cloning identities to take new cards out in other people's names.

"The rise in the amount the average victim lost can be attributed to the cloning of credit cards in other people's names and rising debit card fraud, which usually take longer to detect and lead to higher losses," Van Dyke said.

The research also revealed that about 8.1 million people which is 3.5% of US population were victims of identity theft last year. That was down 28 percent from 11 million people in 2009. The number of victims was the lowest since 2007, before the financial crisis hit.