Some 3.6 million US households, or about three percent of the total in the United States, fell victim to identity theft during a six-month period in 2004, a Justice Department report showed. A study released Sunday by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics was based on interviews conducted from July through December 2004 for the a crime victimization survey.

Households headed by young people (18-24 years old), those in urban or suburban areas, and those with annual incomes of 75,000 dollars or more were the most likely to experience identity theft. Victimization did not differ by race or ethnicity, according to the Justice Department.

About one-third of households that were identity theft victims discovered the loss by noticing missing money or unfamiliar charges on an account, and about a one-quarter were contacted by a credit bureau.

The estimated loss during the six-month period was about 3.2 billion dollars or an average loss of 1,290 dollars.

The victims reported other problems related to identity theft — with one-third being contacted by a debt collector and nearly the same amount having problems with bank accounts; some 26 percent experienced problems with their credit cards.

About one-in-five households spent at least one month resolving their problems and one-third said the problems were resolved in one day.

Some households for which misuse was still ongoing at the time of the interview may have continued to suffer losses. Some said at the time of their interviews that the problems were ongoing.

The report showed a lower total than a survey by another federal agency in 2003, although the methods for the two reports were different.

A Federal Trade Commission report released in September 2003 showed 27.3 million Americans had been victims of identity theft in the prior five years, including 9.9 million people in the prior year.

A private survey released earlier this year by Javelin Strategy and Research with the Better Business Bureau found number of US adult victims of identity fraud decreased from 10.1 million in 2003 to 9.3 million in 2005, and predicted this would decline further to 8.9 million in 2006.