Changes to the Instrument from 2008 to 2012

Identity Theft Supplement
An Overview of Issues and Problems in 2008 and the Resulting Changes
for 2012 and Beyond
Problem 1. Inability to distinguish attempted from successful incidents of identity
theft.
Cause
Instrument dichotomy- Successes versus Attempts
The household NCVS identity theft questions measure whether a household was
victimized by the use or attempted use of personal information for fraudulent purposes.
The supplement, however, was designed to differentiate episodes of id theft as either
successes (meaning some monetary loss, new account opened, or personal information
was used to complete a fraudulent act) or attempts. Attempts were directed to a separate
‘Attempted but failed module’ and therefore, were skipped out of questions pertaining to
the most recent date of the identity theft (items 7d1 and 7d2), victim impact, and direct
financial loss. The attempt module included modified questions pertaining to victim
response, police response, and relationship to the offender. The survey instrument blurs
the distinction between the two modules. For example, a victim of credit card theft should
be in the attempt module if the offender was not successful in charging anything to the
credit card. However, in the first question of the attempt module, one response option is
that the victim discovered the attempted identity theft after he/she ‘contacted the credit
card company to report a theft and was told that fraudulent charges had already been
made.’

Solution
Single instrument with identification of successes and attempts during the data
analysis
Rather than attempt to separate successes from attempts in the instrument, all victims and
attempted victims will be asked the same questions. The identification of attempted
versus successful identity theft victimizations will be done during the analysis on the
basis of whether the victim suffered any direct loss as a result of the theft. If the direct
losses are zero and the offender did not obtain any money or services using the victim’s
identity, this is an attempted theft. If the offender obtained any money or services,
regardless of whether the victim was reimbursed, this will be classified as a successful
incident of identity theft. The single module approach will significantly simplify the
instrument and provides a clearer means of distinguishing between attempted and
successful incidents of identity theft.
Problem 2. Inability to report a 1-year prevalence of the number and percentage of
identity theft victims.
Cause
Missing date information
Asking respondents to remember incidents during a two-year reference period and then
ask them to pinpoint the year and month in which the incident occurred was challenging

for respondents. For 148 cases (success only), the month of the last incident of id theft
was missing so it is not known whether the id theft occurred in the past year or the past
two years. The date of last incident was not asked of those respondents in the attempted
module at all, so it was not possible to attribute attempts to a one- or two- year reference
period. Therefore, all 2008 data had to be reported for a two-year reference period, which
is more complicated for data uses who are generally conditioned to expect annual rates
and frequencies.
Solution
One-year reference period
In order to simplify the instrument and ensure the ability to report on the annual
prevalence of identity theft victimization, the reference period was reduced from two
years to one year. An analysis of the 2008 cases that could be classified as within a oneor two- year reference period, revealed a disproportionate number of incidents occurring
during the most recent 12-months, compared to the number occurring in months 13-24.
This is in line with other research that suggests that a 12-month reference period results
in less recall error than a longer reference period. Thus, the one year reference period not
only simplifies the instrument but also eliminates some of the error associated with a
respondent’s inability to recall information that happened more than 12-months earlier.
Long-term consequences
OVC raised concerns that identity theft victimization can take years to resolve. The
reduction in reference period would exclude victims who experienced identity theft more
than 12-month prior to the interview but were still experiencing the consequences of the
identity theft. In order to include these victims and ensure that these potentially serious
cases were being picked up, a new section on the long-term consequences of identity
theft was added to the instrument. The new section targets respondents who experienced
the identity theft more than one-year previously and would have been excluded from the
majority of questions about the consequences of identity theft victimizations, but who are
still working to resolve the problems associated with the theft.
Problem 3. Inability to attribute the consequences of identity theft victimization to a
single type or incident of identity theft.
Cause
Lack of specification following the screener
In the 2008 ITS, identity theft victims did not specify whether they experienced one or
more incidents of identity theft. Regardless of the number of incidents experienced,
victims moved forward from the screener to the follow-up questions without any
specification of the particular incident to which they referred with their responses.
Therefore, the response to the detailed questions cannot be attributed to a particular type
or incident of identity theft. For the victims who reported multiple types of identity theft,
it was unknown whether the multiple types occurred at the same time or separate times,
yet the follow-up questions do not ask the respondent to consider one particular incident

in his or her responses. A victim that experienced multiple incidents may have responded
one way one time and another way another time, but these responses are all melded into
one. Similarly, a victim may have experienced more than one incident of the same type of
theft (for example, the victim experienced two separate situations in which an existing
credit card account number was misused) but again, the follow-up questions assume that
the response and consequences are associated with a single incident.
Solution
Focus on most recent incident
The revised instrument provides the respondent with instructions on how to define an
incident (i.e. please count a series of related misuses or transactions as a single incident
or occasion) and then asks if they experienced one or more incident during the prior 12months. For those who experienced more than one incident, the field representative
instructs them to consider only the most recent incident in their response to the follow-up
questions. While this approach may introduce some error among respondents who have
difficulty discerning whether misuses should be attributed to the same incident, it
provides substantial clarification to the 2008 approach.

Problem 4. Inability to adjust for possible double counting of monetary losses due to
individuals with joint accounts.
Cause
The complexity of ascertaining how to treat joint accounts
Ascertaining whether the respondent is reporting the misuse of a joint account that has
already been noted by another respondent is difficult. A victim could be a joint account
holder with someone under the age of 16, someone outside of the household, or have
experienced the misuse of more than one account with only one being a joint account and
in all these scenarios the victim’s responses would not be examples of a potential double
counting of the same victimization.
The 2008 ITS contained a series of questions pertaining to joint account. However, for
several reasons the 2008 data was ultimately not adjusted to account for these joint
accounts. First, joint accounts were only defined for successes and not attempts.
Therefore, we could only adjust for direct loss in successes and not indirect loss for
attempts with joint accounts. Joint accounts with persons outside of the survey age range
(under the age of 16) could only be identified for accounts with persons within the
household and not for accounts with persons outside the household. Additionally, victims
of multiple types of identity theft only reported if one of the accounts used was a joint
account but did not specify the number of used accounts that were jointly held or if any
of the used accounts were not joint accounts. Therefore, it was not clear how much of the
reported 2-year financial loss should be adjusted for joint accounts.
Solution

Removal of joint account questions
It was determined that the joint account questions were unnecessarily burdensome and
complicated for respondents without having much practical use. These questions were
removed in the revised instrument. In terms of the prevalence of identity theft, the
argument can be made that each holder of a joint account that is misused is a victim of a
crime and may suffer personal consequences as a result of this victimization. The direct
financial losses may be somewhat overestimated because of the double counting of loss
coming from a small number of misused joint accounts. The readers will be made known
of this potential error and also of the areas in which the direct financial losses associated
with identity theft may be underestimated (for example, the losses suffered by child
identity theft victims).
Problem 5: Inability to report on victim impact for all victims
Cause
Attempt versus success modules
In 2008, the victim impact items were only asked for successes. However, it is quite
likely that even if nothing was successfully taken or used, a person will still need to go
through the process of acquiring new cards, information, credit checks/alerts, etc. and this
could have a similar impact on the victim’s life, stress and relationships as a successful
crime. The inability to report on the emotional and physiological impact of identity theft
for all victims may have been confusing for the reader. It can also be seen as diminishing
the potential seriousness of having some one attempt to use one’s personal information.
Solution
Single module approach
The elimination of the attempted versus successful modules will solve this problem. All
victims will be asked questions about the emotional and physiological impact of
victimization.
Problem 6: Offender data not collected for the majority of victims
Cause
Skip patterns
First, the skip process for “success” did not function properly. The skip pattern
inadvertently skipped out single types of successful/completed thefts. Only successes
from multiple types with a single theft and all attempts were given the offender questions.
Only 276 cases out of the 1970 successful cases received the offender questions.
Second, offender questions were only asked if the victim experienced one type of identity
theft(s) or if multiple types of theft occurred during a single episode. If the victim
experienced more than one incident of the same type of id theft (e.g. multiple credit card
thefts during the course of two years) the offender information would only be provided
for one incident. If the victim experienced multiple types of id theft resulting from
separate incidents (86 cases), the offender questions were not asked.

Solution
Simplification and checking of CAPI instrument
The revised instrument has been simplified to reduce the number of skip patterns and
check items. This will reduce error on the part of the field representatives and the
programmers of the CAPI instrument. BJS has also requested a review copy of the CAPI
instrument prior to administration to ensure that it functions properly and the skip
patterns were programmed correctly.
Problem 7: Inability to adjust for victim risk and exposure
Cause
The 2008 ITS did not ask respondents questions about credit card or banking account
ownership and use. Thus the prevalence of respondents who experienced the misuse of an
existing credit card or banking account is based on the total population, rather than on the
population of those respondents who had these types of existing accounts in the first
place. Without this baseline information there was no way to assess individual risk or
exposure which severely limited our ability to establish demographic estimates and to
understand patterns of victimization.
Solution
The revised instrument contains questions in the screener about whether the respondent
had a credit card and banking account during the prior 12-months. Respondents who did
not have an existing credit card are skipped out of the question about the misuse of an
existing credit card account and the same with banking accounts. This change will allow
for the calculation of a rate of credit card account misuse among those who had a credit
card which is a more accurate calculation.
Problem 8: Inability to establish causal ordering of risk avoidance behaviors and
victimization
Cause
The 2008 ITS asked all respondents, victims and non-victims, to report on whether they
had engaged in risk avoidance behaviors, such as shredding documents and getting
regular credit reports during the past year. However, the 2008 ITS did not ask whether
these behaviors occurred prior to or as the result of an identity theft victimization. Thus,
the analysis could not speak to the effectiveness of these behaviors in preventing identity
theft or to the percentage of respondents that engaged in these behaviors proactively
versus the percentage that engaged in these behaviors to prevent further victimization.
Solution
In the revised ITS, a respondent who reports ‘yes’ to any of the risk avoidance behavior
questions is immediately asked “Did you do this in response to the most recent or any
prior misuse of your personal information?” This addition will not increase the
respondent’s burden significantly but will provide important context for when the

behavior began in relation to any identity theft victimization that the respondent
experienced.