> If someone steals your car and uses it to run over a pedestrian, both you and the pedestrian are victims. They're far more damaged. And you aren't at any fault, even if you e.g. didn't lock it or even left it with the keys in. It's still going to create a mess for you.

The degree of which the individual is victimized is a direct result of the bank's efforts to push all fault and responsibility to the person who had their information used for the fraud. I would argue that the bank is victimized by the fraudster and the bank chooses to transfer the fallout of the victimization to the individual.

Of course, the difference in your example and the identity use is that one is tangible and the other is not. If someone steals your car, you've lost your car. If someone 'steals' your identity, you haven't lost it.

> Obviously, if a bank has a loan in your name it's going to need to talk to you to straighten things out. And the way it would prefer things be straightened out is also, obviously, that the loan be paid versus poofed. (And on the other side, there are also going to be people who borrowed money who claim they never did.)

True, but it shouldn't be my responsibility to prove I didn't take a loan, but instead the bank's responsibility to prove that I did once I make the claim. If they don't like the work involved, then they should perform better due diligence before giving out money, or accept this risk as a cost of doing business.