FBI Reports All-Time High In Internet Fraud Losses

eldavojohn writes "While the number of cases dropped, the amount of money lost to internet fraud reached an all-time high in 2007, a new government report states. 'According to the 2007 Internet Crime Report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 206,884 complaints of crimes perpetrated over the Internet during 2007. Of the complaints received, more than 90,000 were referred to law enforcement around the nation, amounting to nearly $240 million in reported losses. This represents a $40 million increase in reported losses from complaints referred to law enforcement in 2006.' The top ruses used by the fraudsters involved pets, romance and secret shoppers. The original report[Large PDF] is available online, and it contains some interesting graphs. One indicates that the two largest types of fraud are Auction Fraud and Non-delivery, which combine for over 60% of all cases. As Computerworld notes, men are more likely to fall for scams than women, and over 30% of losses are between $1,000 and $5,000. The report also contains data about the location of the perpetrators (Nigeria only accounts for 5.7%), age demographics, and contact methods."

Nigeria

[Detritus]

Many of the Nigerian scammers have just relocated to other countries, including the USA and Canada. It's not like they've seen the light and renounced their life of crime.

Law enforcement needs to grow up.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

The worst advise law enforcement can give are along the lines of:

1) look at feedback. make sure that the seller has a positive track record.

2) if the sellers asks for cash or money orders be suspecious.

3) make sure that the contact information is valid

This kind of advise is completely misleading, because it gives the impression that caution and education are the keys to crime prevention. On the contrary, smart crooks will use these exact elements to manipulate their victims!! How? It is easy for a crook to "steal" feedback. It is easy for a crook to dodge #2, and it is also easy for a crook to emulate #3.

The bottomline is extremely simple. If someone wishes to con someone online, it is absolutely 100% doable. The only way to protect yourself is through insurance. There is absolutely no other way. The worst thing you can say to a victim is "duh, you should have known better". Sure, there are people who will fall more easily to careless cons than others. But the bottomline is still the same. There are ways of stealing identities and getting paid that are completely unavoidable. To the victims, these cases are sheer bad luck. And the criminals deserve the worst because they know what they are doing and they will most likely do it again knowing that it works.

Currently, the only viable option for insurance is credit card fraud protection. If your merchandise doesn't arrive, then just dispute the charge. This does have a huge flipside though. This same insurance that protects buyers is used for buyer fraud. Eventhough the merchandise arrived, they would call anyway and try and get their money back. For sellers, paypal's seller protection policy is the only insurance against this tactic.

Re:And yet...

[yodaj007]

I work for Choicepoint, a company that houses more data about you than you can imagine. Everything from SSN, full name, current and past addresses, who you've lived with, everything. And they've had several big security breaches in the past few years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChoicePoint#Major_security_breaches [wikipedia.org]

Re:And yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'll switch back to cash/checks."

I'd like to know how well that'd work out next time you want to rent a car or download some iTunes.