The Better Business Bureau and Javelin Strategy & Research released a report showing that despite growing fears offline means of identity theft were far more common than online ones. The report also suggests that consumers who access their financial institutions via the Internet faced a lower risk from identity theft and when they were victims they had losses less than one eighth of those who access the financial institutions via paper methods.

The most common method for stealing personal information for identity theft was lost/stolen wallet, checkbook or credit card at 30%. Friends/acquaintances/relatives with access to the information was a distant second at 13%. The first Internet related source was spy warein sixth with only 7%.

The good news is that the problem is not worsening. The total number of Identity Thefts actually showing a slight improvement in 2003. The total dollar volume of theft in 2003 came in at $52.6 billion. The reported cases were 9.3 million with an average theft of $750.