| The Internet is a global marketplace that allows | | | | to Fraud.org, in 2005 the top scams included the |
| businesses to reach consumers in almost any part of | | | | following: |
| the world. Unfortunately, crooks also recognize the | | | | - Auctions: goods were never delivered or were |
| potentials of the Internet. The scams that were | | | | misrepresented. |
| previously conducted by regular mail and telephone | | | | - General merchandise: goods were never delivered or |
| were transferred to the Internet. | | | | were misrepresented. |
| The complaints related to online scams can be | | | | - Nigerian money offers: false promises of riches if |
| subdivided into two categories: fraud complaints and | | | | consumer pays to transfer money to their bank |
| identity theft complaints. According to a report | | | | accounts. |
| published by Consumer.gov in 2006 out of 674,354 | | | | - Fake checks: phony checks were used to pay for |
| complaints 428,319, or 64%, were fraud related and | | | | work or items sold. |
| 246,035, or 36%, were identity theft related. | | | | - Lotteries/lottery clubs: requests for payment to claim |
| In the fraud category, almost 7% of all complaints | | | | lottery winnings or get help to win. |
| were shop-at-home/catalog sales related, 7% were | | | | - Advance fee loans: false promises of personal or |
| prizes/sweepstakes and lotteries related, 6% were | | | | business loans, even if credit is bad, for a fee upfront. |
| Internet services and computer related complaints, 5% | | | | - Work-at-home plans: kits sold on false promises of |
| were Internet auctions related complaints, 3% were | | | | big profits from working at home. |
| foreign money offers related complaints, 2% were | | | | In the identity theft category, in 2006 the credit card |
| advance-fee loans and credit protection/repair related | | | | fraud amounted to 25% of all complaints and was the |
| complaints, and the remaining 11% complaints were | | | | most common form of reported complaints. It was |
| related to telephone services, health care, business | | | | followed by the phone or utilities fraud (16%), bank |
| opportunities and work at home plans, travel, vacation | | | | fraud (16%), and employment fraud (14%). Other |
| and timeshare, investments, and etc. . Overall, | | | | significant categories of identity theft reported by |
| consumer losses amounted to over 1.1 billion dollars and | | | | victims were government documents/benefits fraud |
| the medial monetary loss was 500 dollars. According | | | | (10%) and loan fraud (5%). |