"Identity theft is not necessarily a high-tech crime, and can just as easily damage the credit reputations of low-tech adults who don't spend any time on the internet," said Avivah Litan, vice president and research director for Gartner.
"More than half of all identity theft - where the method of theft is documented - is committed by criminals that have established relationships with their victims, such as family members, roommates, neighbours, or co-workers," said Litan, citing figures published by the Federal Trade Commission.
With identity theft, a thief takes over a consumer's entire identity by stealing critical private information, such as the Social Security number, driver's license number, address, credit card number or bank account number.
The thief can then use the stolen information to obtain illegal loans or credit lines to buy goods and services under the stolen name. Identity thieves typically change the consumer's mailing address to hide their activities.
"Many banks, credit card issuers, cell phone service providers and other enterprises that extend financial credit to consumers don't recognise most identity theft fraud for what it is," Litan said.
"Instead they mistakenly write it off as credit losses, causing a serious disconnect between the magnitude of identity theft that innocent consumers experience and the industry's proper recognition of the crime. This causes a disincentive to fix the problem with the urgency it requires."
In May 2003, Gartner surveyed by mail 2,445 US households to gauge the impact identity theft is having on consumers.