Cybercrime Complaints Skyrocketed in 2008
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), just released their 2008 Annual Report on the amount of Internet crime complaints they received last year, and the numbers are not encouraging.
The IC3 received 275,284 complaints in 2008, a 33 percent jump over the 206,884 complaints logged in 2007. Reported losses in 2008 totaled $265 million, compared to $239 million in 2007. The average individual loss was $931. Almost one-third of the complaints were for non-delivery of merchandise purchased online, while auction fraud accounted for one in four complaints.
Online fraud tends to increase during economic downturns, and given the worsening global recession, 2009 may well be another record-breaking year. Heres a breakdown of the most popular scams (by percentage), along with the average amount of money lost per complaint:
Non-delivery of merchandise/payment: $800 (32.9%)
Auction fraud: $610 (25.5%)
Credit/debit card fraud: $223 (9%)
Confidence fraud: $2,000 (7.9%)
Computer fraud: $1,000 (6.2%)
Check fraud: $3,000 (5.4%)
Nigerian letter fraud: $1,650 (2.8%)
You can read a summary of the report's findings, along with other links to other useful online fraud resources. Download a PDF of the complete report.