It seems that the prevalence of identity theft and the seriousness of typical cases is quite dependent on the country and the legal system and commercial habits there. Most countries in Continental Europe, for example, require their citizens to own ID cards which are needed to prove one's own identity on numerous occasions, such as opening (or even accessing) bank accounts, renting cars, checking in at hotels etc. As ID cards are in general as hard to counterfeit as money, and one usually has to physically show the card, it requires substantial criminal effort to commit fraud. Being used to this standard, businesses are unlikely to accept an ID verification by means of "semi-secret" personal information such as social security numbers to ascertain an identity. Maybe because of this, it is also less common to do business by phone as it is e.g. in the USA.