More Identity Theft Offline than Online

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal regulators warn that the Internet is the thriving frontier for identity theft, but 72 percent of the thefts of personal information for scams last year was done offline, a new report says.

Identity theft—the practice of stealing someone's personal information and running up bills in their name—cost Americans $52.6 billion last year, the report says.

Thieves got their victims' bank or credit information online in just 12 percent of the cases.

Identity thieves aren't making a killing electronically—they're picking through trash and thumbing through lost or stolen wallets, said James Van Dyke, principal analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, a Pleasanton, California financial consulting firm that conducted the study.