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 These statistics have the advantage of the FBI's expertise, but the weakness of being 1 to 2 years out of date.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.

1. LOTTERY SCAMS -
    
2. INTERNET AUCTION FRAUDS -
    
3. CONFIDENCE - NIGERIAN ADVANCE FEE FRAUDs (AFF) -
    
4. PHISHING AND PHARMING FOR IDENTITY THEFT -
    
5. "PASSIVE RESIDUAL INCOME" SCAMS -
    
6. CHECK (COUNTERFEIT) FRAUDS
    
7. WORK-AT-HOME SCAMS
    
8. MATRIX / MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING AND PYRAMID SCHEMES
    
9. PROPERTY INVESTMENT SCHEMES
    
10. 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?