A study found that 16% of Black victims of identity theft lost more than $5,000.
So, over the past three years, the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center and the Black Researchers Collective have worked together to pin down exactly why Black communities experience a higher rate of loss to identity theft schemes compared to the rest of the population.
James Lee, Chief Operating Officer of the ITRC, tells KMOX that the rates of identity theft among the Black community are between six and ten percent higher than in other communities.
"We really don't understand. It could be everything — one of the little nuggets that has come out is that more people in the Black community know who the person who victimized them is, that's not something you see in the general population," Lee said. "So it could be that it's a familiar crime, it could also be something as simple as a lack of education, a lack of resources to help people recover in the Black community."
Lee said the ultimate goal of their research is to find out what the root cause is, and what his organization do to help victims.
"The next step we're taking is to do actual focus groups with both victims and non-victims and these communities across the country, so we make sure we're looking at are there differences in urban areas versus rural areas," he said. "Are there differences in the north, the south, the east and the west? And are there differences based on age groups? So we're going to know a lot more by the end of this year about how to specifically address the issues that we find out are predominant."
Hear more about how the ITRC and the BRC are hoping to address the disparity in effects of identity theft:
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