FTC Announces Significant Enhancements to IdentityTheft.gov

For the first time, identity theft victims can now go online and get a free, personalized identity theft recovery plan as a result of significant enhancements to the Federal Trade Commission’s IdentityTheft.gov website. The new one-stop website is integrated with the FTC’s consumer complaint system, allowing consumers who are victims of identity theft to rapidly file a complaint with the FTC and then get a personalized guide to recovery that helps streamline many of the steps involved. The upgraded site, which is mobile and tablet accessible, offers an array of easy-to-use tools, that enables identity theft victims to create the documents they need to alert police, the main credit bureaus and the IRS among others.

In 2015, the FTC received over 490,000 consumer complaints about identity theft, representing a 47 percent increase over the prior year, and the Department of Justice estimates that 17.6 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2014. The updated website provides a range of new features designed to make the recovery process as easy as possible for consumers. It now walks consumers through a simplified step-by-step checklist that is tailored to the specific type of identity theft they are facing. The advice consumers receive is not generic, but instead customized for their individual needs.