FBI says online scammers becoming more clever

Online crime is on the rise, and the resulting monetary loss more than doubled in 2009 over the previous year, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The center, which is a joint effort between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, received approximately 22 percent more complaints last year than in 2008.

One of the more troubling scams of late for businesses involves phony surveys about the status of employee/employer relationships in the tough economy. Users are invited to apply to participate in the survey, and once they do they have to submit a pay stub to prove their place of employment. After that, they don't hear back from the phony survey conductor, but the employer's bank account is tapped into by way of fake checks.

In its latest annual report, the IC3 outlines the most common online scams, the characteristics of perpetrators and the results of complaints that were referred to law enforcement agencies. Online crime is becoming not only more pervasive but also more complex, according to Donald Brackman, director of the NWC3. Criminals are "developing increasingly sophisticated means of defrauding unsuspecting consumers," Brackman said."Internet crime is evolving in ways we couldn't have imagined just five years ago."

For more:
- see the IC3 announcement
- see the IC3 "2009 Internet Crime Report" (PDF)

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