The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) recently released their report on 2009 Internet crime statistics. As you can probably guess, there were more complaints, more losses, higher average loss per incident. IC3 is a federally funded non-profit, a joint operation between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).
In brief:
- Complaints received: 336,655
- Total loss: $559.7 million
- Increase from 2008 by 22.3 percent
- Median dollar loss of $575
- Average dollar loss: $1,633
Top five categories of offenses:
- Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment – 19.9%
- Identity theft – 14.1%
- Credit card fraud – 10.4%
- Auction fraud – 10.3%
- Computer fraud – 7.9%
Find lots more data and demographic information by reading the full report at IC3.
Great post.
Perhaps I can just add to this that the best way to guard against being ripped off by online sales or auctions of any kind, eBay inlcuded, is to use a bona fide online escrow company. Although it does add some cost, that will take uncertainty out of the transaction.
For my money, the best bona fide online escrow (and there seems to be ten fraudulent escrow sites for every bona fide one) is probably Escrow.com (http://escrow.com). In fact, it’s the only one that eBay recommends.
Take care,
Ulf Wolf