FBI: Online Scams Doubled in 2009

WASHINGTON — Call it a sign of the down economy, but according to recently released FBI statistics, losses from online fraud doubled last year over the previous year.

On January 1, 2009, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) launched a new classification system that categorizes fraud reports into 79 offense-based categories. According to the IC3 report, its website received 336,655 complaint submissions from January 1 through December 31, 2009 — a figure that represents a 22.3 percent increase over the 275,284 complaints received in 2008.

Of the complaints submitted to IC3 last year, 146,663 were then sent to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies for further consideration.

The report states that the vast majority of referred cases contained elements of fraud and involved an average $575 financial loss by the complainant. The total dollar loss from all cases was a reported $559.7 million — nearly double the $264.6 million reported in 2008.

Complaint submissions that were not tagged for further action generally involved cases in which there was no documented loss — for example, a complainant receives a fraudulent email and reports it without acting upon it. Other non-referred cases involve complainants or perpetrators that do not reside within the United States; so no appropriate domestic law enforcement agency is available to refer the case.

Highlights of the report include findings that email swindles where criminals use the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) name in an effort to gain information represented 16.6 percent of all complaints. Non-delivered merchandise or payments account for nearly 12 percent of complaints, while advance fee frauds where the target is asked to pay money upfront for an award, for example, made up nearly 10 percent of complaints.

Identity theft and overpayment fraud in which victims receive a fraudulent monetary instrument covering more than a transaction's agreed-upon amount, along with a request to return the overpayment using a legitimate monetary instrument, round out 2009's top five complaint categories.

According to the Bureau, 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. Other popular scams include hitman scams, astrological reading frauds, economic scams, job site scams, and fake pop-up ads for antivirus software.

Of those complainants providing personal data, 76.6 percent were male, and half reside in California, Florida, New York, the District of Columbia, Texas, or Washington. Nearly two-thirds were between the ages of 30 and 50; and males lost more money than females by a ratio of $1.51 lost per male to every $1.00 lost per female.

The majority of perpetrators (65.4 percent) were identified as being from the U.S., with others coming from the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Canada, Malaysia and Ghana.

"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," the report concludes.

Related:  

Copyright © 2025 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More News

MojoHost to Launch New Servers for Clients

MojoHost has announced that they will launch new GPU servers for their clients.

Maximilian Peldszus Joins Fanblast

Former BestFans CEO Maximilian Peldszus has joined creator software company Fanblast.

Kiiroo Joins Pineapple Support as Supporter-Level Sponsor

Kiiroo has joined the ranks of over 60 adult businesses and organizations committing funds and resources to Pineapple Support.

Eurorgazm Joins ASACP as In-Kind Media Sponsor

Eurorgazm Magazine has signed on as the latest In-Kind Media Sponsor for Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP).

Sex Work CEO Debuts Upgraded 'GPTease' AI Assistant

Sex Work CEO has introduced the Power Tier upgrade to its AI-powered, NSFW text generator, GPTease.

Abella Danger to Host 2025 XMA Creator Awards

the 2025 XMA Creator Awards, presented by premier creator platform Fansly.

Joi AI Joins Pineapple Support as Partner-Level Sponsor

Joi AI (formerly Eva AI) has joined the ranks of over 60 adult businesses and organizations committing funds and resources to Pineapple Support.

German Court Upholds Ban on PornHub, YouPorn

Germany’s Berlin Administrative Court has upheld a “network ban” on adult sites Pornhub and YouPorn for failing to comply with that country’s age verification regulations.

OurDream.ai Debuts New Porn Generator

OurDream.ai, an AI porn-generating platform, has launched an upgraded version of its AI engine.

AEBN Publishes Popular Searches by Country for February, March

AEBN has released the list of popular searches from its straight and gay theaters by country in February and March.

Show More