Friday’s Food for Thought: 18 to 24 Year Olds Are Slowest to Detect Fraud; Why Is That?

Welcome to our Friday’s Food for Thought post. It was a very busy week for identity theft news with the release of the 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report from Javelin Strategy & Research. One of the key findings was that Millennials (consumers aged 18 to 24 years old) take nearly twice as many days to detect fraud, compared to other age groups, and thus are fraud victims for longer periods of time. Why is this? One would think that young people – being so connected via social networks – would be more apt to detect becoming victims of fraud sooner. Well, we try to dive into the psyche of this group, and perhaps we can some up with some answers.

According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials are the first generation in human history who regard behaviors like tweeting and texting, along with websites like Facebook, YouTube, Google and Wikipedia, not as astonishing innovations of the digital era, but as everyday parts of their social lives and their search for understanding. So, yes, they are connected.

Perhaps it is part of the age-old trait of the young: feeling invincible? Many young people have not experienced the level of challenges and hardships that older people have and often take “it would not happen to me” approach to the world. Or perhaps this age group generally feels more optimistic about things and thus do not consider that they could become victims of fraud? We found this article about Millennials feeling optimistic about the current economic climate, which may shed some light on how they view the world.

We would certainly welcome all thoughts and feedback from our readers — especially any readers who are Millennials. Happy Friday!