{"id":443346,"date":"2010-03-18T13:45:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T17:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/?p=32745"},"modified":"2010-03-18T13:45:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-18T17:45:38","slug":"internet-crime-%e2%80%93-complaints-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/443346","title":{"rendered":"Internet Crime \u2013  Complaints on the Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/papundits.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/fbi_ic3_2009.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-32746\" style=\"margin-right:5px;\" title=\"FBI_ic3_2009\" src=\"http:\/\/papundits.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/fbi_ic3_2009.jpg?w=208&#038;h=144\" alt=\"Internet Crime Complaint Center\" width=\"208\" height=\"144\" \/><\/a><strong>With the release of IC3&#8217;s 2009 annual report, it&#8217;s  clear that the need to be <span style=\"text-decoration:underline;\">aware of cyber scams<\/span> is\u00a0more important\u00a0than  ever.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During 2009, did you receive an e-mail that claimed to  be from the <strong>FBI<\/strong> and asked for money or personal information?<\/p>\n<p>If you did, you\u2019re not alone\u2014e-mail scams that misused  the Bureau\u2019s name represented the highest percentage (16.6) of complaint  types submitted last year to the FBI\u2019s Internet Crime Complaint Center  (IC3), according to its latest annual report.<\/p>\n<p>All told, IC3 received <strong>336,655 complaints<\/strong> during <strong>2009<\/strong>, a  hefty <strong>22.3 percent increase<\/strong> from 2008.<\/p>\n<p><strong> In addition to the fake FBI e-mails, rounding out the top five complaint  categories were:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>Non-delivered merchandise and or non-payment<\/strong>,  in which either a seller didn\u2019t ship a promised item or a buyer didn\u2019t  pay for an item (11.9 percent);<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Advance fee fraud<\/strong>, when a victim was  asked to give money upfront, often for goods or services that never  materialized (9.8 percent);<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Identity theft<\/strong>, when someone either  stole or tried to steal a person\u2019s identity or some kind of identity  information (8.2 percent); and<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Overpayment fraud<\/strong>, when a \u201cbuyer\u201d  sent a victim who was selling something a legitimate-looking check or  money order (that turned out to be counterfeit) for an amount greater \u00a0 &#8230; \u00a0\u00a0<span id=\"more-32745\"><\/span> than the price of an item being sold, and then asked the seller to  deposit the payment, deduct the actual sale price, and return the  difference (7.3 percent).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" width=\"260\" align=\"right\" summary=\"Table compares the number of complaints and dollar value  lost for each year 2004 through 2009.\" bgcolor=\"#cccccc\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th width=\"44\" valign=\"top\">Year<\/th>\n<th width=\"100\" valign=\"top\">Complaints<\/th>\n<th width=\"111\">Loss<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2009<\/td>\n<td>336,655<\/td>\n<td>$559.7 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2008<\/td>\n<td>275,284<\/td>\n<td>$265 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2007<\/td>\n<td>206,884<\/td>\n<td>$239 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2006<\/td>\n<td>207,492<\/td>\n<td>$198 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2005<\/td>\n<td>231,493<\/td>\n<td>$183 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2004<\/td>\n<td>207,449<\/td>\n<td>$68 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Of the 336,655 complaints submitted to IC3 last year, just under  half\u2014146,663\u2014were referred to local, state, or federal law enforcement  agencies for further action. Most of those cases involved fraud and  financial losses by the victims. The losses from the referred cases  totaled $559.7 million.<\/p>\n<p>The complaints <em>not<\/em> referred to law enforcement  generally had no financial losses\u2014for example, a victim received a  fraudulent unsolicited e-mail but didn\u2019t act on it\u2014or involved victims  and perpetrators who both lived outside the United States.<\/p>\n<p>But complaints not directly referred to law enforcement  are still valuable\u2014they\u2019re accessible by law enforcement and are used to  analyze trends, gather intelligence, and educate the public. So if you  feel you\u2019ve been targeted, please <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ic3.gov\/complaint\/default.aspx\" >submit a complaint<\/a> to IC3, whether you lost money or not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Some of the more popular e-mail scams during  2009 (and scams to watch out for during 2010) included:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>A new spin on the <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/page2\/jan07\/threat_scam011507.htm\" ><strong>\u201chit-man\u201d  scam<\/strong><\/a>, in which individuals received an e-mail from an  &#8220;assassin&#8221; who claimed he was going to kill them, but who said they  would be spared if they sent money because someone in his organization  knew a member of their family and pled for their lives.<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Spam or pop-ups offering free astrological  readings<\/strong>, but only after birthdates and birthplaces were  provided. Victims were then enticed into purchasing a full-fledged  reading with the promise they would find out something favorable was  about to happen. Of course, they never received the reading.<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Economic stimulus scams<\/strong>, where  victims received a recorded phone message directing them to websites  where they could apply for government stimulus money after first  entering personal information and paying a small fee. Needless to say,  no stimulus money was received.<\/li>\n<li> <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ic3.gov\/media\/2009\/091211.aspx\" >Fake pop-up ads for  anti-virus software<\/a><\/strong> that warned of the existence of  computer viruses but actually downloaded malicious code when clicked.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For more information on Internet crime, read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ic3.gov\/media\/annualreport\/2009_IC3Report.pdf\" >full  report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Filed under: <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/cyber-crimes\/'>Cyber Crimes<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/fbi\/'>FBI<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/news-and-views\/'>News and Views<\/a> Tagged: <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/ed\/'>Ed<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/scams\/'>Scams<\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gocomments\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/comments\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/godelicious\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/delicious\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gostumble\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/stumble\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/godigg\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/digg\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/goreddit\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/reddit\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32745\/\" \/><\/a> <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=papundits.wordpress.com&#038;blog=174708&#038;post=32745&#038;subd=papundits&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the release of IC3&#8217;s 2009 annual report, it&#8217;s clear that the need to be aware of cyber scams is\u00a0more important\u00a0than ever. During 2009, did you receive an e-mail that claimed to be from the FBI and asked for money or personal information? If you did, you\u2019re not alone\u2014e-mail scams that misused the Bureau\u2019s name [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}