Identity theft victims spend an average of 200 hours and up to 22 months on recovery, but there is no single agency, portal, or process that handles the full resolution

When your identity is stolen, you must individually contact each credit bureau (three separate processes), file an FTC Identity Theft Report, file a local police report, contact each creditor where fraudulent accounts were opened, dispute each fraudulent item on each credit report separately, apply for an IRS IP PIN if tax fraud occurred, contact the SSA if your Social Security benefits were affected, and contact your health insurer if medical fraud occurred. Each of these entities has its own forms, its own timelines, its own evidence requirements, and its own appeals process. There is no case manager. There is no single case number that follows you. You are the project manager of your own identity theft recovery, and the project has eight parallel workstreams, each with different deadlines and different definitions of proof. The human cost is staggering. Victims report an average of 200 hours spent on recovery. The IRS Identity Theft Victim Assistance program averages 506 days to resolve a case. During this time, victims cannot qualify for loans, mortgages, or apartment rentals. Forty-two percent report being unable to pay their bills. Forty-two percent report struggling to find housing. Twenty-five percent report suicidal ideation. This is not an inconvenience. It is a life-derailing event that can take years to recover from, and the recovery process itself is a second traumatization. This persists because identity is fragmented across dozens of independent systems, none of which share data or coordinate remediation. The credit bureaus are private companies with no obligation to coordinate with the IRS, which has no obligation to coordinate with health insurers, which have no obligation to coordinate with local police. The FTC's IdentityTheft.gov generates recovery plans and pre-filled letters, but it cannot actually execute any of the steps. It is a checklist generator for a process that requires the victim to make dozens of phone calls, send dozens of letters, and track dozens of deadlines across entities that have no incentive to make the process faster or easier.