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The number of Americans who fell victim to identity theft in 2002 grew 81 percent over the year before. And incidents reported so far in 2003 suggest a major rise over last year, according to a just-released survey funded by Privacy & American Business and conducted by Rochester, New York-based Harris Interactive.

More than 13 million Americans have fallen victim to identity theft or fraud since January 2001, according to the survey. Although 62 percent of the victims didn't incur any cost, 38 percent did have out-of-pocket expenses. The average cost for such victims since 2001 was $740, the survey showed.

In all, over 33 million U.S. residents have fallen victim to ID theft and fraud since 1990.

"ID theft has become the all-American crime of the Information Age," survey designer Alan Westin, professor of public law and government at Columbia University, said in a statement. "These results document that ID theft and fraud are both an organized and freelance criminal activity of major proportions."

He went on to say that no single institution, industry, or government agency is to blame for the problem.

The survey defined identity theft as a situation where someone obtains and uses the identity of another person to secure credit, merchandise, or other commercial items.

Getting Credit

Credit cards were the most frequently targeted in such crimes. About 34 percent of those who knew how their IDs were stolen said someone obtained their credit card information to forge credit cards in their names and make purchases against them. About 12 percent said someone stole or illegally obtained papers or computer records with their personal information on them, which were then used to forge their identities. Stolen wallets and purses accounted for the ID thefts in 11 percent of the cases. Sixteen percent said a relative, friend, or co-worker stole their identities, while other methods included intercepting mail and stealing from mailboxes.

The online survey was conducted May 19-27. About 3,460 adults were interviewed, with each 1 percent of respondents representing about 2.1 million people.

The latest results are similar to those released by Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner, which earlier this month reported that about 7 million U.S. adults had been victims of identity theft in the past 12 months. But because of underreporting and misclassification of such crimes, thieves have only a 1 in 700 chance of being caught, according to Gartner.