Complaints of Internet-Based Crimes Up 33 Percent

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News
Complaints of Internet-related crimes soared 33 percent last year, countering two years of consecutive declines, according to a report released recently by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
The IC3 Web site received 275,284 complaints last year, up from 206,884 the previous year. The organization referred 72,940 of those complaints to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The IC3 is a partnership among the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Referred complaints, which ranged from online auction fraud to identity theft to nondelivery of goods purchased online, cost consumers about $264.6 million last year, with the median dollar loss reaching $931 per complaint, according to the report. In 2007, the losses were less: $239.1 million.
Complaints about merchandise that was paid for but not delivered and about merchandise that was sent but never paid for were at the top of the list. Of all complaints received, 32.9 percent were related to these offenses.
Internet auction fraud accounted for 25.5 percent of the complaints, while credit-card and debit-card fraud made up 9 percent.
Even though complaints of crimes involving nondelivered goods occurred the most, that category didn't hit consumers in the pocketbook like check fraud, which carried a median loss of $3,000.
And the most common means to engage in an Internet crime was e-mail, the report noted. In 74 percent of the reported crimes, e-mail was used, followed by Web pages in nearly 29 percent of the cases.