When Brittany Pritchett checked her bank statement last week, she found her Bank of Oklahoma account completely drained.

“I just happened to be looking at my bank statement online,” said Pritchett, geology junior. “Someone spent $1,900 in Ocala, Fla., on the same day I bought stuff here.”

She said her money was used to buy home improvement supplies at an Outdoor Products store.

Pritchett immediately called Bank of Oklahoma’s emergency line and spent the day driving between the bank and the police department, where she filed a report.

Pritchett said she thinks her account information was stolen either while she was in Europe last summer or at the bank.

“It’s hard to protect yourself against this when you don’t really know what went wrong in the first place,” Pritchett said.

According to a 2006 survey by the Federal Trade Commission, about 3.2 million adults in 2005 attributed identity theft to the misuse of one or more of their credit cards. The survey states that the average amount stolen in 2005 was $1,882.

Pritchett said she is concerned with the way her personal information was handled at the bank.

Bank of Oklahoma accidentally gave her a printout containing information from another person’s account, including his name, home address, Social Security number and four-digit personal identification number, she said.

“The bank told me they never put that sort of stuff on paper, but I had this guy’s information right in front of me,” she said. “It’s really scary. I shredded it, but I could have taken everything this guy had.”

Bank of Oklahoma didn’t return requests for comment.

Instances of identity fraud have decreased slightly over the past several years. A Javelin survey, a research company that focuses solely on the financial service industry, said there were 8.4 million cases of identity fraud in the U.S. last year. This is a decrease from a high of 10.1 million cases in 2003.

Last year saw a decrease in the amount of money stolen in incidents of fraud by $6.4 billion, according to Javelin.

According to a report by the Washington Post, American banks clear around 10 billion electronic transactions per year, which means that Americans are becoming increasingly comfortable with having payroll checks or Social Security funds deposited directly into their checking accounts, as well as having funds automatically debited out of their accounts to pay bills.

Pritchett said making purchases with her debit card in Europe was an easy alternative to carrying cash. But she said she felt uneasy relying on a card instead of cash.

“In Europe, it was so much easier to just use the card to avoid having to convert money. But I always tried to be really careful about where I used it,” Pritchett said.

Pritchett said she was especially surprised when she learned a friend who was overseas with her had a similar problem.

“I studied abroad this summer, and I told a friend who went with me about what happened,” she said. “It turns out the exact same thing had happened to her,” Pritchett said.

Her friend, Luanne Vo, pre-medicine junior, had $845 stolen from her Bank of Oklahoma checking account near the same time as Pritchett. Vo’s money was also spent in Ocala, Fla.

Vo’s money was also used at businesses with an emphasis on home improvement, like Home Depot. Vo said she also thinks someone may have tapped into her information while she was in Europe. Vo said the pair thinks their heavy use of electronic banking was the culprit.

“We were both using our debit cards pretty heavily while we were there,” Vo said.

According to the Government Finance Officers Association, those liable for fraud are the victims, not the banks.

“The Uniform Commercial Code has clearly stated that the liability for fraudulent items lies with the depositor, not the bank,” a Government Finance Officers Association publication states.

But Vo said Bank of Oklahoma restored her account after suspending it when the fraudulent purchases were discovered.

“Just recently, within the past two days, I had my money put back into my account,” she said. “They’ve been pretty helpful.”

As a result of losing so much money at once, Pritchett said she has to rely on her parents for financial help until the situation is resolved.

“It’s so flooring when you realize you have no money,” she said. “You’re like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to eat.’”