The FBI's recently published 2010 Internet Crime Report indicates that in 2010 the most common internet crimes were non-delivery of payment or merchandise, impersonating the FBI and identity theft.
The FBI uses the Internet Crimes Report, in part, to identify emerging trends in fraud.
The report covers all types of internet crimes, financial and non-financial. Most of them were handled by local, state, or federal law enforcement agencies, though the report included complaints that law enforcement never dealt with by law enforcement.
The FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center's Internet Crime Complaint Center, over 300,000 complaints were filed concerning internet scams.
Most of the filings came from males between 20 and 59 years old, with suspects mostly in California, Florida, Texas and New York. Among cases the FBI or local law enforcement actually solved, around 75 percent of the offenders were males living in California, Florida, New York, Texas, the District of Columbia, and the state of Washington.
The FBI also received some international complaints from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India. International offenders were primarily in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Canada.
As far as computer crimes, the top ten included overpayment fraud, credit card fraud, advance feed fraud, spam, auction fraud, and miscellaneous fraud.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center encourages victims to report crimes, even if there was no harm done.
Source: www.tgdaily.com, "FBI crime report highlights trends in Internet fraud," Lydia Leavitt, 27 Feb 2011.
Comments: 3
3 Comments
Ulf Wolf
February 28, 2011 at 5:30 PM
With non-delivery/payment heading up the list of reported cyber crime (and don't forget that roughly one in seven report these crimes) it's getting trickier and trickier these days to buy things (especially pricier items like art or autos) online.
A friend of mine tells me that since he began insisting on using an online escrow service, he's had no more problems. If a seller refuses to employ a bona fide online escrow, well, then he or she is most likely a scammer, and good riddance.
Some online escrows (like escrow.com) even offer remote vehicle inspections, which really takes the risk out of buying autos online.
report scam
February 28, 2011 at 8:41 PM
Everyone pls watch out for scammers, a friend of mine lost more than $2000 from her account. They pretended as bank and sent emails to people with a link to a fake website which stole her account information, be careful of this. thanks
Fraud Investigation Services
April 9, 2011 at 12:55 PM
Local government should focus on this issue, because every single day cybercrime rates go up. What if tomorrow, internet will be a place full crimes? Think about this.
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