Internet fraud complaints triple in 2002

[hershie]

Internet fraud complaints triple in 2002


By Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 9, 2003, 6:06 PM PT


The FBI's Internet fraud unit said the number of complaints it referred to law enforcement authorities tripled last year, as did the cost of fraud to victims.
The bureau's Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC), which launched in May 2000 and is managed in part by the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), said it referred 48,252 complaints out of the 75,063 it received last year. That's nearly three times the 16,775 complaints it referred in 2001.

The monetary loss associated with the fraud more than tripled, to $54 million from $17 million in the same period.



"The IFCC helps victims by putting fraud information into the hands of law enforcement and then fosters interagency cooperation so these complaints are responded to quickly," said Jana Monroe, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, in a release.

Auction fraud led the pack as it did in 2001 and 2000, accounting for 46 percent of complaints the unit referred to law enforcement in 2002. Online auctioneers have been the target of numerous fraud schemes, ranging from shill bidding, in which sellers bid on their own auctions to artificially jack up the price, to identity-theft schemes.

The matter of online-auction fraud has attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress.

Instances of nondelivered merchandise and nonpayment made up 31 percent of referred complaints, and credit card or debit card fraud came in third with just shy of 12 percent.

Median monetary losses were highest for those complaining about the notorious Nigerian letter fraud--they lost $3,864. People who claimed to be victims of identity theft lost an average of $2,000, and those who suffered check fraud lost a median of $1,100.

The problem of identity theft has increased along with the growth of the Internet. Instances of identity theft rose 73 percent in 2002 over 2001, according to a January report by the Federal Trade Commission, and topped the list of consumer complaints made to the FTC in 2002.

Most victims of fraud referred by the IFCC resided in California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois. Fraud perpetrators, when identified, lived in the same states minus Texas plus Pennsylvania.

In 2002, the fraud center also referred to other agencies and bureaus 36,920 complaints about child porn, computer intrusion, spam and other alleged crimes.




http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1025-...&subj=cnetnews

[Evil Chris]

hershie.... good article.
We had quite a long discussion going on here about just that some time ago. Check it out, there are some very interesting observations:

http://www.xnations.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1221

I personally think that most (60% or more) of the agencies out there that mass mail will not be doing it for very much longer. You have to do it 110% clean now. No more BS such as fake "opt out here" links that don't work.

[hershie]

Originally posted by Evil Chris
hershie.... good article.
We had quite a long discussion going on here about just that some time ago. Check it out, there are some very interesting observations:

http://www.xnations.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1221

I personally think that most (60% or more) of the agencies out there that mass mail will not be doing it for very much longer. You have to do it 110% clean now. No more BS such as fake "opt out here" links that don't work.

Chris,
I just read that thread, and I must say that was one of the most informative discussions on a topic I have ever read on a message board. It was great to hear from some of the larger programs that are actually sending out emails from bought lists...

I think the consensus from that thread is that regardless of the growing hassles associated with the practice, sending out bulk emails is still worth it. There are even a few emailers like Net Creations (postmaster direct) who became so large from doing email direct marketing that they were able to go public on NASDAQ.

One idea I didn't see addressed in that thread is whether anyone felt it was kosher to send a negative action email to a "bought list" where the original at the original opt-in they agreed to receive emails from "similar programs or partners"... So you send an email saying "you signed up for xxxxxxxx and they thought you would have an interest in our program/site/product; if not and you don't want to receive future emails from us - here's how you opt -out...". Its not technically an opt-in, but it may be a work-around for how to buy lists and try to clean them up?

[Evil Chris]

Originally posted by hershie
One idea I didn't see addressed in that thread is whether anyone felt it was kosher to send a negative action email to a "bought list" where the original at the original opt-in they agreed to receive emails from "similar programs or partners"... So you send an email saying "you signed up for xxxxxxxx and they thought you would have an interest in our program/site/product; if not and you don't want to receive future emails from us - here's how you opt -out...". Its not technically an opt-in, but it may be a work-around for how to buy lists and try to clean them up?

This is only my opinion, but I don't think that's a good idea for adult oriented mailings. While it might work well with non-adult, but still generate complaints, imagine the outrage in adult over something like this just because of the nature of the content. If I were doing it, I'd double my efforts to be careful how I did it, and who I decided to partner up with.