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Online Auction Fraud Tops FBI Complaint List
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-03-22
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The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said in its annual Internet Fraud Crime Report that nearly 45 percent of referred complaints centered on fraudulent auction activity.
 | | Online Auction Fraud Tops FBI Complaint List |  |
Last year saw over 200,000 complaints submitted to IC3, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These included accounts of crimes like auction fraud and credit/debit card fraud; plenty of non-fraud issues occupied investigators too: computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited email, and child pornography.
The financial impact of such fraud as reported hit nine figures. Total dollar losses from reported fraud topped $198 million. "This report demonstrates how widespread and sophisticated Internet crime has become," said Cyber Division Assistant Director James E. Finch.
When it came to victimizing people, auction fraud easily topped the list of complaints. Auction fraud has been a problem particularly in electronics and with computer buyers, where products can be "offered" for a substantial discount under an account with pumped-up, fake positive feedback.
Those factors combine to entice buyers to bid. Once they have made their payments, the seller vanishes with the money.
Phishing certainly plays a role in many online crimes. The report noted how email and web pages provided the first points of contact for scams. It continues to amaze us that in this day and age, people are still greedy and/or stupid enough to fall for Nigerian email fraud, but the report said the median loss reported for those cons hit $5,100.
Year over year, there were fewer crimes referred to IC3 in 2006. But that $198 million loss climbed from 2005's $183 million figure. The loss total mostly accumulated in small pieces through the year; nearly 40 percent of the referrals citing a monetary loss were for between $100 and $999.99 per incident.
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Tags: FBI, Online Fraud, Auctions
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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