Internet Fraud
Jordan and Deleoan
What is internet fraud??
Internet fraud is the use of Internet services or software with Internet access to defraud victims or to otherwise take advantage of them.
Examples of internet fraud
- Auction Fraud- failure to deliver goods, failure to pay, hidden charges.
- Non-Delivery of Merchandise- you make the payment, but you never receive the goods.
- Credit-Card Fraud- non secure sights take peoples credit card numbers
- Investment Fraud- Showing false information on the stock market for the investors to invest in.
- Nigerian Letter- Scams made that try to collect large amounts of money that you "owe" in a short amount of time.
Nigerian letter pretending to be FBI. The letter says that the man has invested in fraud and to get reimbursed to give the info to that email.
How to avoid internet fraud:
- Don't click on hyperlinks and e-mails.
- Keep your social security number to yourself.
- Stick with credit cards.
- Use strong passwords
- Request refunds
Statistics
- In 2014, there were 269,422 complaints of internet fraud.
- California had the most victim complaints, at 12.54%.
- Ohio had the least victim complaints, at 2.48%.
- The US consists of 91.54% of the victim complaints, the next highest percent is Canada, at 1.51%.
- For government email scams, females ages 30-39 lost $3,953,172.
- Real Estate Fraud- people over the age of 50 were the most victims, losing around $12 million dollars.
- Romance Scam- Women over 40 reported losing over $68 million.
- 70% of fraud victims were scammed through online auctions.
- 30% of victims were scammed by emails.
- 4.9% of people represented check fraud.