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Internet Fraud, Scam and Crime Statistics - 2008
Statistics regarding internet scams and frauds are presented here as a
snapshot in time January 2008, but below are links to archived statistics from
previous years. Web crime statistics are notoriously difficult to obtain, with
many sources each calculating them in a different manner and different time
frame, using a different source.
To provide the most reliable picture, we use the Internet Crime Complaint
Center's
(IC3) statistics as a baseline. The IC3 began operation on May 8, 2000, as
the Internet Fraud
Complaint Center and was established as a partnership between the National White
Collar Crime Center (NW3C) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to
serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding
the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. These statistics have the advantage
of the FBI's expertise, but the weakness of being 1 to 2 years out of date.
To overcome that we add our own tracking system statistics to update the FBI
/ IC3 statistics.
Background
The statistics for the current Top 10 frauds and scams list can be found
below. A description of
these scams is on this page. The greatest challenge in assembling a list and
statistics of the frauds is that most fall into several categories. Consumers
may characterize crime problems with
an easier “broad” character, which may be misleading. For instance, a consumer
that gets lured to an auction site which appears to be eBay, may later find that
they were victimized through a cyber scheme. The scheme may in fact have
involved SPAM, unsolicited e-mail inviting them to a site, and a “spoofed”
website which only imitated the true legitimate site. The aforementioned crime
problem could be characterized as SPAM, phishing, possible identity theft,
credit card fraud or auction fraud. In such scenarios, many complainants have
depicted schemes such
as auction fraud even though that label may be incomplete or misleading.
The IC3 website received 207,492 complaint submissions during 2006, their most
recent reporting year. That was a 10.4% decrease compared to 2005 (when
231,493 complaints were received.) ConsumerFraudReporting.org (CFR) received
20,000 complaints during 2007, it's startup year for receiving complaints.
From the submissions, IC3 referred 86,279 complaints of crime to federal,
state, and local law enforcement agencies around the country for further
consideration. The vast majority of cases were fraudulent in nature and involved
a financial loss on the part of the complainant. The total dollar loss from all
referred cases of fraud was $198.44 million with a median dollar loss of $724.00
per complaint. This is up from $183.12 million in total reported losses in 2005.
Other significant findings related to an analysis of referrals include:
- Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising
44.9% of referred complaints. Nondelivered merchandise and/or payment
accounted for 19.0% of complaints. Check fraud made up 4.9% of complaints.
Credit/debit card fraud, computer fraud, confidence fraud, and financial
institutions fraud round out the top seven categories of complaints referred
to law enforcement during the year.
- Of those individuals who reported a dollar loss, the highest median
losses were found among Nigerian letter fraud ($5,100), check fraud
($3,744), and other investment fraud ($2,695) complainants.
- Among perpetrators, 75.2% were male and half resided in one of the
following states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois,
Pennsylvania and Tennessee. The majority of reported perpetrators were from
the United States. However, a significant number of perpetrators where also
located in United Kingdom, Nigeria, Canada, Romania, and Italy.
During 2006, Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense,
comprising 44.9% of referred crime complaints. This represents a 28.4% decrease
from the 2005 levels of auction fraud reported to IC3. In addition, during 2006,
the non-delivery of merchandise and/or payment represented 19.0% of complaints
(up 21.0% from 2005), Check fraud made up an additional 4.9% of complaints which
is up 2.1% from 2005 levels. Credit and debit card fraud, computer fraud, and
confidence fraud complaints represented 9.8% of all remaining complaints. Other
financial institutions fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, and child
pornography confidence fraud complaints together represented less than 5.5% of
all complaints.
2008 Patterns
In 2008, that ranking has changed considerably - Lottery scams are number,
followed by Auction scams, non delivery and check fraud.
-
LOTTERY SCAMS
-
- INTERNET AUCTION FRAUDS
-
-
CONFIDENCE - NIGERIAN ADVANCE FEE FRAUDs
(AFF)
-
-
PHISHING AND PHARMING FOR IDENTITY THEFT -
- "PASSIVE RESIDUAL INCOME" SCAMS
-
- CHECK (COUNTERFEIT)
FRAUDS
- WORK-AT-HOME SCAMS
- MATRIX / MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING
AND PYRAMID SCHEMES
-
PROPERTY INVESTMENT SCHEMES
- FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS SCAMS
How much money do victims typically lose?
Where are the scammers located?
The greatest concentration (per capita) of internet scammers in the United
States are concentrated in the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) and
Nevada. By sheer numbers, California, NY and Florida take the top three
positions, based on their population sizes.
Globally, in 2006, most scammers operated from the United States. The
U.S. still held a huge lead in active internet users then, a gap that has since
closed considerably. In 2008, China and the U.S. each have approximately
200 million internet users, and most of the world has grow commensurately.
As the user populations have grown abroad, so have their scammer populations.
Several countries stand out in 2008 as have disproportionately huge populations
of scammers: Nigeria, Romania, the Netherlands and China. Lottery and fake money
transfer (AFF)frauds seem to be the specialty of the Nigerians. The United
States still leads in Identity Thefy and Phishing/Spoofing frauds.
Who is being victimized?
The FTC's Annual List of Top Consumer Complaints
listed by state
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