In the mid-term, victims might be held responsible for the perpetrators' actions and be investigated by law enforcement agencies as well as facing consequences such as legal charges, change in their credit status as well as damage to their good names.

According to a 2017 Identity Fraud Study, in 2016 identity theft caused $16 billion in damages to 15.4 million consumers in the United States alone. In the same year, UK fraud prevention organization Cifas documented almost 173,000 cases of identity fraud in the UK, the highest level since they began keeping records 13 years ago.