Internet Crime Complaint Center Receives One Millionth Complaint
Beginning in the year 2000, the Internet Crime Complaint Center has been taking complaints about internet scams such as auction fraud and identity theft.
Last week, the Internet Crime Complaint Center received its one millionth complaint. The center (also called IC3) is run by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National While Collar Crime Center. It passes complaints and intelligence on to appropriate law enforcement agencies; and keeps track of trends in cyber crime.
More than 500,000 complaints were sent to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. These complaints totaled $650 million in losses.
The trend has gone from small complaints like auction fraud on Ebay. Recently, more complex crimes such as identity theft have been the focus of most complaints
Even so, auction fraud remains the most complained about crime. Almost half of the complaints received last year were regarding problems with online auctions.
Non-delivered merchandise or payment made up 19% of the complaints. Check fraud made up 4.9% of complaints. Credit and debit card fraud, computer fraud, confidence fraud, and financial institutions fraud were the other top categories of complaints referred to law enforcement agencies last year.
Read more here: http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/internetschemes.htm.
Rick Rahim is the President of the Online Business Bureau.
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