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Security News

FBI Reports All-Time High In Internet Fraud Losses 121

Posted by Soulskill from the hello-sir-madam dept.
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."
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FBI Reports All-Time High In Internet Fraud Losses More

FBI Reports All-Time High In Internet Fraud Losses

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  • Still profitable (Score:3, Funny)

    by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:13AM (#22960472)
    (Nigeria only accounts for 5.7%)

    Yes but to put it into perspective that still accounts for 60% of the GNP of Nigeria.

    • And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DaedalusHKX ( 660194 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @02:00AM (#22960646) Journal
      The funniest part is that several years ago, I had a form of ID theft occur. Someone took out loans and bought property in my name... even with my SSN and all. Who lost my information? Only two candidates were possible. The credit rating agencies, or the government. Nobody else had all the data that was used, since I rarely give specific information and have a tendency to verify who holds what.

      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)

        by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Friday April 04, 2008 @02:17AM (#22960696) Homepage Journal
        Nice story - but for those of us who want to know - what did you do to get the fraud exposed and the perpetrator arrested? Just how did you get everything handled and your name cleared?
        • All I can say is that since I had all the ID information, and the bank had the land deeds, after a lot of hard work, and basically little to no help from the cops, I got my name "semi" cleared. I flipped that land about the same way the house flippers did, and since the cops never caught anyone after I talked to them, I'm still stuck clearing my name. Got enough cash though, and enough corporations that I don't particularly give a shit about my personal name as far as the credit bureaus are concerned. Th

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SirSlud ( 67381 )
        Thats a credit economy - given a free market, the demand isn't going to come from people who need reports on themselves, the demand is going to come from people who want to check your credit. So its no surprise that the bias the market dictates is for people who want access to other peoples' credit, not the credit owners themselves.

        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 offeri
        • free markets don't apply to everything you know.

          my information isn't a publicly traded entity.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by electrictroy ( 912290 )
            Stop using credit cards then. No more trail for them to track. (Yes I know: inconvenient.) (It's a choice; convenience of cards? Or anonymity of using no cards? You decide.) I continue using credit cards because they offer me 1-5% off everything I buy. I don't mind the tracking as long as I'm getting back ~$1000 a year. However if that 1-5% discount ever stops, I'll switch back to cash/checks.

            Also:

            Congress recently passed a law that entitles the citizens to request One credit report per year from ea
        • You miss the point. That credit information is MY property. If they are selling information about someone without that someone's consent, they are actually performing patent or copyright infringement (many people DO patent or copyright their names). The individual about whom the information is collected has the right to have it verified. False information is libel or defamation. The fact that governments enforce the corporate side has little to do with a "free market".

          Government forced itself down ever

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SirSlud ( 67381 )
            I think you're missing my point. I agree with your sentiment. I'm saying better regulation is needed because its clear that in a free market where you credit rating is not

            The individual about whom the information is collected has the right to have it verified. False information is libel or defamation.

            Couldn't agree more. The reality is that the demand isn't there to consider erroneous credit scores libel or defamation. But given that it seems to me credit ratings are simply a summary of what banks, loaners
            • Without governments to bail them out when they make bad decisions like lose 100000 SSN's, most of these companies (like big airline for example) would have been defeated by their own unsustainable and shoddy business methodologies.

              Consider that in the area I live, I've heard chat of the locals forming their own charter group for airlines. About 100000 locals in an area twice as big as the nearest metropolitan zone (some 30 miles away from the border of the county). People even here, as recently as 2 or 3
              • 10 000 locals not 100 000 ... typo.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by SirSlud ( 67381 )
                Government is in the pockets of big business. My recommendation is to demand that the public demand more from government to demand more from big business. You pretty much make my point for me.

                Short of governments bail out companies because they're well connected, and a need to retain some level of stability (like, if every airline in the states went bankrupt at the same time, would you advocate the collective economic punishment of no functional airlines? I'd think my tax dollars are better spent on at leas
                • Afraid of pain, but want evolution?

                  Had it been for the likes of us, as we are today, we'd still be monkeys. Always afraid of change. Imagine the early cave man, learning of fire... the fearful society of today is actually projecting its own fearful nature upon the early man, but I wager, all of our "progress" was due to curiosity, not governmental "protections".

                  I don't expect change to come from the majority. Majority has always been kicked, dragging and screaming into each tomorrow. As they say, "in al

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by aplusjimages ( 939458 )
        Are you sure that only those two entities have that info? I remember when I signed up for my car insurance they asked me a ton of personal questions that I didn't have the answers to. They asked me stuff about my dad and which street I lived on in 1982. I couldn't believe the amount of personal history they had on me.
        • Yep, you're one more vote for me to write a nice privacy primer. Read above, I answered how I "mostly" cleared my name.
      • Since the property was in your name, did you go and investigate it and end up selling it?
        Was it in your town?
        Was it in another country?

        Please do tell more because I am intruiged as to how you technoically have a new house but haven't been able to do anything about it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by yodaj007 ( 775974 )
        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]
        • Indeed, most of that information is bought from the utilities companies, the government, banks and hospitals.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ehiris ( 214677 )
        The aggregated information companies are also very responsible for the mortgage crisis mess.
        Up until recently income could be overstated without being checked if the credit rating was high enough. That led to many people getting loans they could never afford just because they managed their credit well.
  • Not a big surprise, I'm sure most of us can think of at least one person who's been scammed online.

    I have a friend who tried to buy an Xbox 360 for 400+ dollars on Ebay and got scammed when the lady asked him to use a payment site other than paypal.

    • Re:A suckers born every second. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by blahplusplus ( 757119 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:52AM (#22960624)
      Having been defrauded this year, I was defrauded by what seemed like a legimate site, only to have the site suddenly disappear after I had made my order. Even though the fraudulent site did publish the businesses phone #, had an email address, etc.

      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.
      • If you're a seller, it's extremely easy to scammed:
        - your buyer uses counterfeit money order (no money for you)
        - your buyer claims non-receipt (instant refund if you can't prove delivery)
        - your buyer pays with stolen card (money gets sucked out of your account)

        As a buyer, it's extremely easy NOT to be scammed:
        - use paypal
        - use credit card
        - return item with Confirmed Delivery

        I've found it extremely easy to return damaged items to a seller (even when the seller refused), and then file a claim with both Paypal
        • So instead I returned an empty box to the seller, and threw the non-operational camera into the dumpster. I got a refund from Visa because the empty box showed "delivered".

          isn't that fraud?
          • Isn't it ALSO fraud to mail a camera that the seller KNEW was a worthless piece'o'junk even though he advertised it as "fully operational"??? Yes of course it is.

            I'm not going to waste $50 of my money mailing a broken brick back to a Known Scam Artist (which he would then pawn off on some other poor soul). Especially since the refund was only $70, which means I'd net just $20 refund!!! Nope; not gonna do it; wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by pyrr ( 1170465 )
              Under most circumstances, you can take and item back to the courier and tell them you're refusing delivery, they'll just send it back to the seller. The USPS probably won't do that, but FedEx and UPS seem to be willing to do so.
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • Oh well. Cry me a river.

                I don't feel guilty about "scamming" a Scam Artist because I refused to waste $50 to mail back a non-operational camera (which he already KNEW was non-operational). Nor do I feel guilty that I shot & injured a man who threatened my ex-girlfriend with a knife in downtown Philly. There's a certain point where MY rights supercede the jerk's rights, which is why we throw people in jail and deprive them of their freedom. I feel no guilt.

        • "As a buyer, it's extremely easy NOT to be scammed."

          You have a pretty limited definition of 'being scammed', this site sent me shipping emails, had a phone # for the business (i.e. the people picked up the phone at the business, etc) there, they went out of their way to look legitimate.

          Just because I got my money back does not mean I was not defrauded and yes I used a CC (pretty much all online orders use CC). The fraud did occur, whether I was insured against it or not is quite irrelevant. I consider mys
      • If you buy something online from a shop you've never dealt with before, go to resellerratings.com and see how it is rated. Otherwise you are buying a watch from a guy on the street. And giving him $500 cash and waiting for him to go "around the corner" to get the watch for you.

    • Re:A suckers born every second. (Score:5, Funny)

      by FoolsGold ( 1139759 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @02:00AM (#22960648)

      Not a big surprise, I'm sure most of us can think of at least one person who's been scammed online.

      *raises hand*

      I bought Vista from an online retailer. The copy was completely legit, but I still felt scammed. And a little dirty.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Artuir ( 1226648 )
        How'd you run it? I bought a copy of Vista Ultimate and before I even put the DVD in the drive, my computer jumped out a window!

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by CarpetShark ( 865376 )

        I bought Vista from an online retailer. The copy was completely legit, but I still felt scammed. And a little dirty.


        That's because, as the article says:

        One indicates that the two largest types of fraud are Auction Fraud and Non-delivery, which combine for over 60% of all cases.


        The other 40% is Windows.

  • Do you want your post to matter more? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Overkill Nbuta ( 1035654 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:17AM (#22960494)
    Are you interested in this topic? If you want your post to matter more just go to www.slashdotpro.com Just enter your name, social insurance, and credit card info and your set to go! Be posting on slashdot like a pro.

  • pretty obvious ruse (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So the scammers send you money and ask you to send some of it back.. or to a 3rd party....

    who exactly is falling for this? wow.

  • New victims? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Harmonious Botch ( 921977 ) * on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:29AM (#22960544) Homepage Journal
    Is this a new wave of fraud, or a new bunch of stupid victims? I read the article, and saw nothing that didn't scream fraud to anybody with more than a dozen functioning brain cells.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by houstonbofh ( 602064 )
      Internet targeted marketing allows you to reach a maximum number of stupid people guaranteeing success in your fraudulent endeavors. Included in our package is the document "Ten Thousand ways to find Stupid People.pdf" and a free spell checker to give misspellings guaranteed to engender trust. Just send $1500 to our trusted escrow agent...
    • I read the article, and saw nothing that didn't scream fraud to anybody with more than a dozen functioning brain cells.

      Agreed. I found it interesting how the article described different scams with inconsistent amounts of detail. For example, when the article discussed the pet scam thing, it described how an over-paying check would be mailed to a pet owner, with a request that the owner wire the difference to someone else who would be caring for the pet... only (elaborated the article) for the owner to

      • It's simple - they're all the same scam. The author is just varying the amount of detail so each paragraph doesn't read exactly like the previous one.

        1. Gain the trust of an idiot.
        2. Get them to send you money.
        3. Profit!!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mpe ( 36238 )
        For example, when the article discussed the pet scam thing, it described how an over-paying check would be mailed to a pet owner, with a request that the owner wire the difference to someone else who would be caring for the pet... only (elaborated the article) for the owner to eventually discover that the check was bad, and that they were out the wired money.

        This kind of "overpayment fraud" can be much more general. It dosn't even need to involve The Internet either. Typically the fraudster is using the b
    • Well, a dozen functioning brain cells clearly puts you in the upper 95 percentile...

    • ...saw nothing that didn't scream fraud to anybody with more than a dozen functioning brain cells.

      You just answered your own question, though I would also add greed to that list.

  • Efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jessta ( 666101 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:33AM (#22960562) Homepage
    The internet increases efficency of communication, bring more people in contact than ever before.

  • Unfair (Score:3, Funny)

    by CSMatt ( 1175471 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:34AM (#22960566)

    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.
    Hey! It's not my fault that the most interesting and nifty stuff is only available online!
    • i wonder if they adjusted that figure for the fact men spend more online, and that there are more men online then women.

      I highly doubt it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ulash ( 1266140 )
        I think this only makes sense. There are so many spam emails geared towards men. How many women would have the same ... ahem... incentive... to open an email entitled "See Angelina Jolie nude!"?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by treeves ( 963993 )
        I highly doubt it too, because AFAIK, there are more women online than men [emarketer.com].

        They're doing different things, to be sure. Women use it more for social activities, men more for browsing and collecting (hunting and gathering?). I think some of the reports consider using e-mail as being online. I do believe that you are correct in saying that men spend more money online than women.

        My wife and I are somewhat exceptions in the spending category. Although I spend more time online, and she does spend a lot of time

  • Lies, damn lies and statistics... (Score:3, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:40AM (#22960584)
    Auction Fraud and Non-delivery, which combine for over 60% of all cases ... Nigeria only accounts for 5.7%.

    Yes, but non-delivery of Nigerian auction purchases - HUGE.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • fraud profits from dumb/greedy people. sure a few people get scammed on ebay etc, but the big numbers in this come from really stupid people who fall hook line and sinker for 419 scams and the like.
    • Its funny. Today a co-worker (a software engineer like me. Not young. Probably in his 30's) sent an email around on our internal news server asking if it was a scam.

      It was an obvious 419 scam so I replied as such. Then he replied saying "what's a 419 scam"? and I gave him a wikipedia link.

      I haven't seen many of these going around lately which may be a factor. They are pretty easy to filter.

  • natural selection? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ch0knuti ( 994541 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @01:49AM (#22960616)
    Maybe it's just evolution on a high tech scale?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by maxume ( 22995 )
      There is a negative correlation between intelligence and immediate reproductive success and there is a negative correlation between income and immediate reproductive success, so probably not, at least not in the way that you are thinking.
  • Why is it that people will pay thousands of dollars for a pet, over the internet, without actually visiting the pet? I mean, we found the most awesome dog at the local shelter; there are plenty of "save the breed" outfits that will get you the breed you want. And are men simply the victims of their partner saying "its sooooo cute!" and they gladly open their wallet and wire the money?

    Overall I think the pet industry is aberrant and should be governed by the CDC.

    • The scammers specialize in fashionable purebreds and puppies, both of which are harder to find. I don't know why people would pay large sums of money for a dog sight-unseen, but it happens a lot.

  • PDF (Score:1)

    by WolF-g ( 539252 )
    This PDF sounds like a "how to" manual.

  • Nigeria (Score:3, Informative)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @02:36AM (#22960784) Homepage
    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.

  • Sites need to be more accountable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by v(*_*)vvvv ( 233078 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @02:41AM (#22960798)
    Paypal is one of the least secure financial sites on the internet. Not only are email addresses used as user names, there are no secondary passwords or pins for transactions, no confirmation emails, not even IP tracking or blocking. Then there is the issue of accounts being linked with eBay with passwords often matching. So a hijacked ebay account can easily lead to a hijacked paypal account, and often times the hijacked accounts come with great feedback.

    But when paypal or ebay get's compramised, they don't go to the police. They take absolutely no responsibility for their lack of security, and they don't even try to prevent future crimes. 120% of their work goes towards dodging blame and making the victim pay for their losses and do any paper work.

    These sites are the perfect accomplices for online criminals. And they profit from it. All those fake handbags and sneakers on ebay still account for millions in listing fees and work towards their usage statistics.

    The police need to investigate these crimes and send the bill to the sites where the crime occured. They should also automatically fine the criminals 20x what they stole and charge them for rent for the time they lock them up (which can be as little as 3 days, I don't think this matters).

    Credit card companies are also to blame. Now it is easier than ever for buyers to file false claims and get merchandise for free. If any credit card fraud occurs, even in the smallest amounts, these cases need to be processed by law enforcement and fines need to be handed out. Too many people know they can get away with it, and keep repeating the same crime.
    • That's funny, I used paypal to send a moderately large sum to a contractor in NZ from the states, and I got a confirmation phone call within 5 minutes of posting the transaction.
    • Paypal is one of the least secure financial sites on the internet. Not only are email addresses used as user names, there are no secondary passwords or pins for transactions

      You mean like this [paypal.com]?

      Then there is the issue of accounts being linked with eBay with passwords often matching.

      That's a user/human problem, not something specific to E-bay and Paypal. While, in this case, because the two are the same company they could force consumers to have different passwords, it would negatively impact the user satisfa
      • Regarding the security key, see my other reply.

        That's a user/human problem, not something specific to E-bay and Paypal.

        It most certainly is. Ebay reveals email addresses. You are given the paypal user name on a platter. And ebay is not a financial site, and is easier to hack. You can harvest email addresses from eBay, then apply the "10 most popular password" rule and you are bound to find a match. And this is the simple method. Who knows what a real hacker can do.

        Many criminals are criminals because they don't have any money. Shall we lock them up if they are unable to pay? It's been tried already. Take away hope and you only force criminals into greater levels of dangerous activity.

        People who practice auction fraud or credit card fraud are not poor. They have computers and credit cards and in

  • The big problem is how everything has become so computerized lately. It's not a bad thing for the most part, but when it comes to money, what happened to keeping the loot somewhere safe? Nowadays, some dude could steal a billion bucks without moving more than a few fingers over a keyboard. How to avoid this problem? Buy a large and very, very heavy safe with a quality locking system. Bolt it to the concrete foundation of your home. Build a frame around the base and pour concrete, thereby enclosing the bolti

    • Re:The secure way to store your money. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Titoxd ( 1116095 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @03:42AM (#22960978) Homepage
      The only problem there is that you would be watching your money evaporate inside the safe, due to inflation's effect on the value of a dollar.
      • Inflation (or as I call it: devaluation) doesn't affect "real" money like gold, silver, or diamonds. Devaluation only affects the fake paper money.

        I don't have any gold now but I'm planning on getting some. It's the only way type of wealth that keeps its value, even if the paper system collapses and/or banks close & take your money with them.

    • If someone wants to bust into this thing, they'll have to come with jackhammers, heavy duty metal cutters, and if they intend on busting the safe open elsewhere, lifting equipment.

      Nah.. all they need is some duct tape.

      First to tape over the windows when they break them to come in, and then to tape you and your family to your beds.
      Then they can proceed to maim, rape and kill you (not necessarily in that order) one by one until you give up the combination.
      And they will surely kill you later when they open the safe and find only couple of hundred in cash and a signed photo of Richard Stallman.

      You don't keep money in the bank so it does not get stolen. Banks get robbed - its a fact.
      You

  • Different title (Score:1, Interesting)

    by FreeDisk.nl ( 1181167 )
    "FBI Reports All-Time High In Internet Fraud Losses" should be: "FBI uses scare tactics on public to further future agenda of restricting internet even more" I do get scared when I read these kinds of messages. Scared that 'the public' might fall for this and say: "YES! We DO want restrictions! Because we have to protect 'our great nation' against (and here we go) terrorism, crime and child pornography and everything else that we could be scared about."
  • ... All-Time High ...

    So it will decrease from now on? ;-)

  • The Real Culprit: Unauthenticated EFTs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @03:45AM (#22960984) Homepage Journal
    ... electronic funds transfers, and automated clearinghouse "checks".

    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      Even when checks were on paper, it was rare that any bank looked at the signature. I've seen plenty of forged checks that looked like they were created by a second grader. The bank normally just has someone read the numeric amount and type it into a MICR printing machine. Everything else runs on autopilot without human intervention. I was told by a banker that it was cheaper for them to correct any errors after the fact, when the customer complained.
  • increase as amount of Internet users increase. News at 11.

  • Two surprises for me... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Eth1csGrad1ent ( 1175557 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @04:25AM (#22961098)
    1. Bank phishing is almost non-existent according to the docs - from the PDF I assume comes under Identity Fraud which in total comprises 2.9 % of overall internet fraud. Given that this number is all Identity Fraud, not just phishing, can we assume that people have finally gotten the message about opening emails from their bank ? Or is there a more covert reason in that banks are unwilling to admit to being stung and therefore payout the complaint without telling the autorities ??? (I would have thought this would be the most profitable online scam out there)

    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 ?
    • In Comunist Russia the goverment frauds the internet.

    • 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?
      I highlighted the answer to your question above, in the quote.

      Why is it that so many people automatically take as holy gospel anything written by some kid who came slouching out of some no-name college with a Journalism degree in his paw, and who probably never set foot in Russia in his life?

  • Law enforcement needs to grow up. (Score:5, Informative)

    by v(*_*)vvvv ( 233078 ) on Friday April 04, 2008 @04:26AM (#22961100)
    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: (Score:2)

      by kesuki ( 321456 )
      this reminds me of google product search. for a while i was bothering to report pirate software sites on google product search to suitable websites where you can report software piracy... but it was getting really hilarious after a few attempts, the EXACT product search i was doing to find the pirates was now turning up ad-sense ads for Pirate software sites!! LOL because i had managed to get enough pirate software removed from product search, they were now using Adsense to get their products out to the th
  • ...report what will keep them growing on the backs of the tax payer. If federal-jurisdiction crime goes down, do you think the FBI will let us know? No. If gun crime goes down with the BATFE let us know? Of course not. All regulatory agencies have a vested interest in more stringent regulations, because it will mean more unwitting violations and more dollars for their coffers.
  • My "X" loved these. I don't know if it really fraud, or just really good sales technich. Basicly she was told to go shop here and she would get re-imbursed. Well sometimes she got paid, and sometimes, well it came back that there was an "error" and she couldn't get re-imbursed. I wonder how many company's pay someone to "get" shoppers in there store, and that "someone" gets scams to have people send money, and make it impossable to "do it correctly" so they don't have to re-imburse. I know it isn't exactly
  • Today I was checking my gmail spam box to make sure good stuff didn't get filtered into there and there was an email for "See sex videos of Sarah Jessica Parker". What man would fall for that? I'll pass if Parker is making the list these days.
  • "While the number of cases dropped, the amount of money lost to internet fraud reached an all-time high in 2007"

    This is usually a sign that the persons involved are more organized and sophisticated.

    After all, why scam millions and get $.02 from each one when you can scam a few, get a whole lot of money out of each, and take advantage of their unwillingness to admit they've been duped?

    We're obviously talking about a group that is maximizing their profit returns on this, and we should be especially worried th
  • Dear lucky /. recepient,

    You have won the software lottery, which will automatically read the /. articles for you and uplink the knowledge to your account. You will be able to post with great praise and get informative & interesting karma on all topics! Just please reply back with your name, address, bank account and social security number.
  • Like millions of people, U probably got that $4 charge from THE PORTLAND CHAP. All it takes is 1 insecure website, break in, charge $4 to a million credit cards. No-one notices.

  • A lot of online crime doesn't get reported as online crime. say for instance, most types of identity theft, in general they're gaining the information online, but doing the crimes offline, so they don't get reported as internet crime.

    so there is a huge skew between the amount of money stolen online, vs the amount on 'online crime' reported. I've heard (on TV shows) of figures as high as $6 billion a year globally for credit card/bank fraud etc that is done online, but because the victims don't go to a webs
  • The fact that knowledge of a 16 Digit number and minimal knowledge of someone (which leaks everywhere) allows you to take someone's money is just plain stupid. We're not living in the 1950's anymore. There's enough computing power to do two-factor authentication, or failing that, the credit card company could offer a way to generate a ONE TIME USE authorization code to hand to a vendor for each distinct purchase.

    It's not that hard to do... why can't they get off their collective asses and do it?

    --Mike--

  • I've never seen an annual report generated by a law enforcement agency that omitted: How many people were arrested and charged with so-called cyber crimes during 2007? What crimes were they charged with? How many suspects were convicted? How much jail or prison time, if any, did they get?

    What percentage of the criminal charges were based on fraudulent conduct against individual victims (as opposed to corporate or other institutional victims)?

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