FBI Reports All-Time High In Internet Fraud Losses 121
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."
New victims? (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
natural selection? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A suckers born every second. (Score:4, Interesting)
Scam's are much easier to pull off over the net, and I don't think it's a matter of suckerdom as much as distance and ease of pulling it off. There are plenty of legitimate businesses online, this is the first time I have been defrauded.
And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the irony. I called Equifax and Experian and after verifying that the information they and I had was correct, they told me I could not receive my own credit report because I did not possess the proper ID to clear myself to them... yet when I went into trucking, they were able to run a credit check on me without so much as a single complaint!
Interesting how the actual OWNER of an identity is not permitted to know what kind of data is warehoused about him or her, but everyone else pays 15 bucks and gets a full detailed copy faxed to them over insecure lines.
I think the bullshit is in the centralized repositories of standardized and aggregated information, not the fact that it is being stolen. That is inevitable when such a heavy prize is dangled at any height. Just imagine what will happen when they tie biometric (unchangeable) data to it.
Witness protection, to say the least, will take on a WHOLE new meaning. Might change name and address and "person number" once you rat on the mafia, but you won't change your DNA or retinal scan
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
Without regulation, it seems rather natural to me that lenders and scammers could supplant any revenue that might be had from people asking for their own credit reports by offering money to credit reporting companies because its in their best interest for people not to know their own credit rating.
Different title (Score:1, Interesting)
The Real Culprit: Unauthenticated EFTs (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day when I was a young coder - that was in a whole different century, mind you - we had these paper gadgets called "checks" that couldn't be cashed unless the account holder signed them. Our banks kept records called signature cards to compare them to, to make sure the checks were legit.
Even when Automatic Teller Machines came along, you needed both a card and a Personal Identification Number to withdraw cash.
But these days, anyone who knows your routing number (bank and branch number) and your account number can initiate an EFT to rob you blind! Yes, they'll get caught eventually - but your money will be long gone.
I understand that the banking industry is losing ten billion dollars a year worldwide this way. You'd think that would be enough to get them to require some kind of authentication, but I guess the efficiency savings from not having to process paper checks makes up for it.
Small comfort to the victims though.
A friend of mine who is a professor, with a PhD and very prominent in his field, with a big grant and legions of grad students, fell for a phishing scam. They withdrew $4000 from his account. He'd never heard of phishing before. So you see, the scams do pay off sometimes.
Two surprises for me... (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Russia. Only 0.8 % of Internet Fraud comes from Russia ??? For all the bad press over the years... Is anyone else having a hard time accepting this number ?