The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that in 2008, the organization’s Web site received 275,284 complaints of fraudulent and non-fraudulent issues on the Internet, a 33.1 percent increase from 206,884 complaints in 2007.
“These complaints were composed of many different fraud types such as auction fraud, non-delivery, and credit/debit card fraud as well as non-fraudulent complaints such as computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited e-mail, and child pornography,” the 2008 Internet Crime Report explained.
Of the submitted complaints, 72,940 were referred by the IC3 to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies for further consideration. The report noted that the “vast majority” of these cases were fraudulent in nature and cost $264.6 million in losses, or a median loss of $931.00 per complaint.
In 2007, the losses totaled $239.1 million, meaning the losses in 2008 were 10.7 percent higher.
Non-delivery of merchandise and/or payment was the most reported offense, accounting for 32.9 percent of all referred complaints, up 32.1 percent from last year’s figure.
Auction fraud accounted for 25.5 percent of all referred complaints in 2008, a 28.6 percent decline from the figure in 2007.
Credit/debit card fraud accounted for 9.0 percent of all referred complaints, while confidence frauds (which include Ponzi schemes) accounted for 7.9 percent of all complaints received.
Computer fraud (6.2 percent), check fraud (5.4 percent), Nigerian letter fraud (2.8 percent), identity theft (2.5 percent), financial institutions fraud (2.2 percent) and threat (1.9 percent) rounded out the top 10 referred complaints in 2008, according to the IC3.
Check fraud, which accounted for 7.8 percent of the total loss in 2008, had a median loss per reported complaint of $3,000, making it the most costly complaint type.
Confidence fraud, which accounted for 14.4 percent of the total loss in 2008, had a median loss per reported complaint of $2,000, while Nigerian letter fraud had a median loss of $1,650 and computer fraud had a median loss of $1,000.
In cases with a reported location, more than 75 percent of perpetrators were male, and more than half resided in the following ten states, in the order of the number of perpetrators in each state: California, New York, Florida, Texas, District of Columbia and Washington.
In terms of perpetrators per 100,000 people, the District of Columbia led the way with 81.32, followed by Nevada with 80.84.
The U.S. was the top perpetrating country, accounting for 66.1 percent, followed by the U.K. with 10.5 percent, and Nigeria with 7.5 percent.
The Internet remains a huge conduit for contact instances between complainants interacting with perpetrators, as 74.0 percent of these instances happened through e-mail, while 28.9 percent happened through a Web page.
Another 15.6 percent occurred through telephone, 10.3 percent through instant messenger and 8.3 percent through physical mail.
Only 1.7 percent of these contact instances happened in person.
Sources:
http://www.nw3c.org/downloads/2008_IC3_Annual%20Report_3_27_09_small.pdf
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162234/fbi_internet_fraud_complaints_up_33_percent_in_2008.html
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