This information is from the Internet Crimes Complaint Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is presented by Criminology Research Project, Inc., for your academic enrichment only. All credit for this article goes to the Internet Crimes Complaint Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Criminology Research Project thanks the people of the Internet Crimes Complaint Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for making this report available. It is the desire of CRP that you possess the most up-to-date information available on this most rapidly growing criminological problem. You are encouraged to visit the Internet Crimes Complaint Center’s web-site for a more detailed and complete report.
2009 Internet Crime Report
Executive Summary
From January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Web site received 336,655 complaint submissions. This was a 22.3% increase as compared to 2008 when 275,284 complaints were received. Of the 336,655 complaints submitted to IC3, 146,663 were referred to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies around the country for further consideration. The vast majority of referred cases contained elements of fraud and involved a financial loss by the complainant. The total dollar loss from all referred cases was $559.7 million with a median dollar loss of $575. This is up from $264.6 million in total reported losses in 2008. Unreferred submissions generally involved complaints in which there was no documented harm or loss (e.g., a complainant received a fraudulent solicitation email but did not act upon it) or complaints where neither the complainant nor perpetrator resided within the United States (i.e., there was not an appropriate domestic law enforcement agency for direct referral).
Complaints received by IC3 cover many different fraud and non-fraud categories, including auction fraud, non-delivery of merchandise, credit card fraud, computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited email, and child pornography. All of these complaints are accessible to local, state, and federal law enforcement to support active investigations, trend analysis, and public outreach and awareness efforts.
On January 1, 2009, IC3 implemented a new complaint classification system based on a redesigned questionnaire that generates an automatic classification of the complaint into one of 79 offense-based categories. This redesign also resulted in a number of changes to the way the system gathers and classifies complaint data. Further information about these changes can be found in Appendix I of this report. Significant findings related to an analysis of the complaint data include:
Email scams that used the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) name (schemes in which the scammer pretended • to be affiliated with the FBI in an effort to gain information from the target) represented 16.6% of all complaints submitted to IC3. Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment (in which either a seller did not ship the promised item or a buyer did not pay for an item) accounted for 11.9% of complaints. Advance fee fraud (a scam wherein the target is asked to give money upfront- often times- for some reward that never materializes) made up 9.8% of complaints. Identity theft and overpayment fraud (scams in which the target is given a fraudulent monetary instrument in excess of the agreed-upon amount for the transaction, and asked to send back the overpayment using a legitimate monetary instrument) round out the top five categories of all complaints submitted to IC3 during the year.
Of the top five categories of offenses reported to law enforcement during 2009, non-delivered merchandise and/or • payment ranked 19.9%; identity thieft, 14.1%; credit card fraud, 10.4%; auction fraud, 10.3%; and computer fraud (destruction/damage/vandalism of property), 7.9%.
Of the complaints involving financial harm that were referred to law enforcement, the highest median dollar losses were • found among investment fraud ($3,200), overpayment fraud ($2,500), and advance fee fraud ($1,500) complainants.
In those complaints in which perpetrator information is provided, 76.6% were male and half resided in one of the • following states: California, Florida, New York, the District of Columbia, Texas, and Washington. The majority of reported perpetrators (65.4%) were from the United States. A number of perpetrators were also in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Canada, Malaysia, and Ghana.
Among complainants, 54% were male, nearly two-thirds were between the ages of 30 and 50, and a little over one-• third resided in one of the following states: California, Florida, Texas, or New York. The majority of complainants were from the United States (92%). However, IC3 received a number of complaints originating in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Puerto Rico.
Male complainants lost more money than female complainants (ratio of $1.51 lost per male to every $1.00 lost per • female). Individuals 40-49 years of age reported, on average, higher amounts of loss than other age groups.
In addition to FBI scams, popular scam trends for 2009 included hitman scams, astrological reading frauds, • economic scams, job site scams, and fake pop-up ads for antivirus software.
Overview
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) began operation on May 8, 2000, as the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. Established as a partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), IC3 serves as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cybercrime. Since inception, IC3 has received complaints across a wide spectrum of cybercrime matters, including online fraud (in its many forms), intellectual property rights (IPR) matters, computer intrusions (hacking), economic espionage (theft of trade secrets), child pornography, international money laundering, identity theft, and a growing list of additional criminal and civil matters.
IC3 gives the victims of cybercrime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the local, state, and federal level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet-related crimes. For affected members of industry, IC3 can leverage both intelligence and subject matter expert resources to identify and craft an aggressive, proactive approach to combating cybercrime.
IC3 2009 Internet Crime Report is the ninth annual compilation of information on complaints received by IC3 and referred to law enforcement or regulatory agencies for appropriate action. The results provide an examination of key characteristics of: (1) complaints; (2) perpetrators; (3) complainants; (4) interaction between perpetrators and complainants; (5) popular scams of 2009; and (6) success stories involving complaints referred by IC3. The results in this report are intended to enhance general knowledge about the scope and prevalence of cybercrime in the United States. This report does not represent all victims of Internet crime, or crime in general because it is derived solely from the people who filed a report with IC3.
General IC3 Filing Informat
The number of complaints referred to law enforcement has increased from 72,940 in 2008 to 146,663 in 2009 (see Figure 3). All complaints not directly referred are still accessible by law enforcement, used for trend analysis, intelligence gathering and consumer education. Typically, these non-referred complaints do not involve a documented case of financial or physical harm or involve a situation in which neither the complainant nor perpetrator reside within the United States. In a minority of cases, there is no designated agency to refer a complaint, based on jurisdictional factors or agency-defined thresholds for referral.
During 2009, IC3 implemented a new complaint classification system. This complainant-driven system is based on a logic-driven questionnaire that generates an automatic classification of the complaint into one of 79 offense-based categories. This redesign has also resulted in a number of changes to the way IC3 system gathers and classifies complaint data. The new classification system improves upon the previous system by making clearer distinctions between complaint elements and by reducing the number of categories used to classify complaints.
The results contained in this report were based on information that was provided to IC3 through the complaint forms submitted at
www.ic3.gov. Complainants without Internet access are advised to use resources at their local library, educational institution, local law enforcement agency, or local victim’s assistance office. After a complaint is filed with IC3, the information is automatically referred to the appropriate local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.www.ic3.gov. The data represents both a complete analysis of all the complaints and a sub-sample of those complaints that have been referred to law enforcement. Although IC3’s primary mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding cybercrime, those complaints involving other types of crime such as telephone and mail contact were also referred.4 | Internet Crime Complaint Center Figure 1: Yearly Comparison of Complaints Received via the IC3 Web site
From January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009, there were 336,655 total complaints filed with IC3 (see Figure 1). This is a 22.3% increase compared to 2008 when 275,284 complaints were received. The number of complaints filed per month, for 2009, averaged 28,055. Dollar loss of complaints referred to law enforcement was at an all time high in 2009, $559.7 million, compared to previous years (see Figure 2).050,000100,000150,000200,000250,000300,000350,000200020012002200320042005200620072008200916,83850,41275,064124,515207,449231,49207,492206,884275,284336,655
Figure 2: Yearly Dollar Loss (in millions) of Referred Complaints
$0$100$200$300$400$500$6002001$17.8$54.0$125.6$68.1$183.1$198.4$239.1$264.6$559.720022003200420052006200720082009
Figure 3: Yearly Number of Referrals
030,00060,00090,000120,000150,0002001200220032004200520062007200820094,81048,25270,553103,95996,73186,27990,00872,940146,6632009
Complaint Characteristics
During 2009, email scams that used the FBI’s name was the offense most often reported to IC3, comprising 16.6% of all crime complaints. Non-delivery of merchandise and/or payment represented 11.9% of complaints. Advance fee fraud made up an additional 9.8% of complaints. Other top 10 complaint categories included identity theft (8.2%), overpayment fraud (7.3%), miscellaneous fraud (6.3%), spam (6.2%), credit card fraud (6.0%), auction fraud (5.7%), and destruction/damage/vandalism of computer property, (i.e.,”computer damage,” 4.5%) (see Figure 4).
The complaints referred to law enforcement by IC3 were largely those cases involving identifiable loss. That meant certain complaints received in high numbers (e.g., FBI scams) were referred in lower numbers because the complainant’s intent was to notify IC3 of the scam, rather than report a financial or physical loss.
For a more detailed explanation of complaint categories used by IC3, refer to Appendix I at the end of this report.
Complaint category statistics may not always produce an accurate picture of what is occurring. They are based on the perception of consumers, and are thus influenced by how the complainant characterizes their victimization. Two different people may describe the same victimization in very different ways.
A key area of interest regarding Internet fraud is the average monetary loss incurred by complainants contacting IC3. Such information is valuable because it provides a foundation for estimating average Internet fraud losses in the general population. To present information on average losses, two forms of averages are offered: the mean and the median. The mean represents a form of averaging familiar to the public: the total dollar amount divided by the number of complaints. Because the mean can be sensitive to a small number of extremely high or extremely low loss complaints, the median is also provided. The median represents the 50
th percentile, or midpoint, of all loss amounts for all complaints referred to law enforcement. The median is less susceptible to extreme cases, whether high or low amounts lost.
Figure 4: 2009 Top 10 Most Common IC3 Complaint Categories (Percent of Total Complaints Received)
0.0%5.0%10.0%15.0%20.0%FBI ScamsNon-Delivery Merchandise/PaymentAdvanced Fee FraudIdentity TheftOverpayment FraudMiscellaneous FraudsSpamCredit Card FraudAuction FraudComputer Damage16.6%11.9%9.8%8.2%7.3%6.3%6.2%6.0%5.7%4.5%6 | Internet Crime Complaint Center
Of the 146,663 referrals during 2009, 100,296 involved a victim who reported a monetary loss. The total dollar loss from all cases of fraud in 2009 that were referred to law enforcement by IC3 was $559.7 million; that loss was greater than 2008 when a total loss of $264.6 million was reported. Much of this increase can be attributable to a greater number of higher loss complaint categories (e.g., identity theft) relative to auction fraud, which historically has been among lowest loss offenses. Of those complaints reporting monetary loss that were referred to law enforcement, the mean dollar loss was $5,580 and the median was $575. The significant difference between the mean and median losses is reflected by a small number of cases in which hundreds of thousands of dollars were reported to have been lost by the complainant.
Over 20 percent (21.7%) of complaints referred to law enforcement involved losses of less than $100, and 36.7% reported a loss between $100 and $1,000. Just over 28 percent (28.3%) of the complaints referred to law enforcement reported losses between $1,000 and $5,000 (for a grand total of 86.7% of complaints referred to law enforcement showing a loss of $5,000 or less), and 13.4% indicated a loss greater than $5,000 (see Figure 6). The highest dollar loss per referred incident was reported by overpayment fraud (median loss of $2,500) complainants. Investment fraud (median loss of $1,857) and advance fee fraud (median loss of $1,500) complainants were other high dollar loss categories.
Figure 5: 2009 Top 10 Most Referred IC3 Complaint Categories (Percent of Total Complaints Referred)
0.0%5.0%10.0%15.0%20.0%Non-deliveryIdentity TheftCredit/Debit Card FraudAuction FraudMiscellaneous FraudsAdvanced FeeOverpayment FraudFBI ScamsSpamComputer Damage19.9%14.1%10.4%10.3%7.9%5.7%4.8%4.5%4.3%3.5%
Figure 6: Percent of Referrals by Monetary Loss
$100,000.00 and over$10,000 to $99,999.99$5,000 to $9,999.99$1,000 to $4,999.99$100 to $999.99$0.01 to $99.99
1%28.3%36.7%21.7%6.5%5.8%2009 Perpetrator Characteristics
As important as it is to understand the prevalence and monetary impact of cybercrime, it is also vital to gain insight into who the typical perpetrators are. This can prove to be difficult in the world of cybercrime, where a mask of anonymity can impede law enforcement efforts; the gender of the perpetrator was reported only 35.1% of the time, and the state of residence for domestic perpetrators was reported only 38.0% of the time. In those cases in which a complainant was able to provide information about the suspect, over 76% of the perpetrators were male and over half resided in: California, Florida, New York, Texas, Washington and the District of Columbia (see Map 1). The District of Columbia, Nevada, Washington, Montana, Utah, and Florida have the highest per capita rate of perpetrators in the United States (see Table 1). Perpetrators also have been identified as residing in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Canada, Malaysia, and Ghana (see Map 2). Refer to Appendix III at the end of this report for more information about perpetrator statistics by state. Readers are cautioned to note that throughout this document, perpetrator demographics represents information provided to the victim by the perpetrator so actual perpetrator statistics may vary greatly.
Table 1: Perpetrators per 100,000 People*
| Rank
|
State
|
Per 100,000 People
|
| 1
|
District of Columbia
|
116.00
|
| 2
|
Nevada
|
106.73
|
| 3
|
Washington
|
81.33
|
| 4
|
Montana
|
68.20
|
| 5
|
Utah
|
60.22
|
| 6
|
Florida
|
57.28
|
| 7
|
Georgia
|
56.99
|
| 8
|
Wyoming
|
56.40
|
| 9
|
North Dakota
|
51.01
|
| 10
|
New York
|
48.10
|
Shirley Blackwelder said,
March 19, 2010 at 3:42 am
Just testing to find out if I can blog!
John said,
September 21, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I’m being bullied, stalked and borderline harassed by someone on the Internet and was wondering if you could help me.