It’s widely known that when your identity is stolen and the crooks run up charges on your credit card you can dispute those and get the money back. The banks and credit card companies always have a reserve set up to deal with these extra expenses. So you might think that identity theft is a victimless crime. However this can not be further from the truth. If the banks/credit cards didn’t have to spend all that money dealing with this crime they could lower their rates and fees, which would benefit us all. Your credit rating could also suffer. While you can possibly get this fixed, it will take time and plenty of work to get your credit repaired. Next, you’ll have to prove that you’re not responsible for these charges to all those companies who are demanding payment from you. Also, the government suffers from billions of dollars worth of fraudulent benefit claims each year because of identity theft. This money is often times never recovered and is paid by your tax dollars.