There was a good comment on HN the other week about identity theft:

> There's no such thing as identity theft, it's all bank fraud or in this case student aid fraud. "Identity theft" is a term coined by banks to try to make it sound like random people should have to deal with the fallout of the banks' bad identity verification practices.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43923179

In this case, the ”identity theft” happens because Google trusts someone they shouldn’t. If they didn’t, the scam wouldn’t be possible. Yes, the scammer is the problem, but Google are providing them the opportunity, and leave it to each victim to deal with the situation.