Good News: Montanans Are Unlikely To Have Their Identity Stolen

We have plenty to worry about in Montana. Rising house costs, spiking property taxes, limited affordable housing, grizzly bears, wildfires and more. Fortunately, however, we don't have to worry about having our identity stolen (relatively compared to the rest of the nation).

A major tech review website called Cloudwards analyzed information on identity theft. The article reviewed each state and came up with the most & least dangerous U.S. states this year.

The findings

Identity theft spiked across the country. "Overall, identity theft across most states increased in 2023 compared to 2022," said the article. It costs a lot of headaches and money when one's identity is stolen, not that you needed me to tell you that. According to Cloudwards findings, identity theft cost Americans a collective whopping 12.5 billion dollars in 2023. The main form of identity theft was credit card fraud with over 380 thousand reports filed last year.

The good news is that Montana ranked 50th out of 50 states plus D.C. on the list. "Meaning that this is one of the states with the lowest risk of identity theft crimes," said Radmila Bulatovic with Cloudwards via email. Bulatovic broke it down further saying under Montana law, if the financial result of identity theft totals more than 1,500 dollars then it is tried as a felony. The punishment can range as high as 10 years in prison, a fine of 10,000 dollars or both.

Montana had 126 reports of identity theft per 100,000 people.

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Of course, identity theft can still happen to anybody, so don't think you can gambol around. Be diligent when surfing the web and don't fall for a phone call from your "grandson" asking for 5,000 dollars in relief fund.

Washington D.C. had the highest risk of identity theft with "478 identity theft reports per 100,000 people." Tennessee was the only state lower than Montana on the list with "185 reports per 100,000 people."