Lagos — The total value of Internet fraud cases reported last year to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) rose 10.5 per cent year over year to $264.6 million.

Also in the Centre's 2008 Internet Crime Report, the volume of cases reported to the agency's web site rose 33.1 per cent to 275,284.

The agency's newly released report notes that the United States (US) is the largest source of crime perpetrators for complaints with a reported location, with 66.1 per cent, followed by the United Kingdom (UK), 10.5 per cent; Nigeria, 7.5 per cent; Canada, 3.1 per cent and China, 1.6 per cent.

The most common source of fraud complaints was non-delivery of merchandise or non-delivery of payment, at 32.9 per cent of complaints, followed by auction fraud, 25.5 per cent; credit/debit card fraud, 9 per cent; confidence fraud such as Ponzi schemes, 7.9 per cent; computer fraud, 6.2 per cent; check fraud, 5.4 per cent; Nigerian letter fraud, 2.8 per cent; identify theft, 2.5 per cent; financial institution fraud, 2.2 per cent, and criminal threats, 1.9 per cent.

Ponzi schemes are usually based on investment scams that reward some investors with funds collected from new investors.

The Internet Crime Complaint Centre, commonly called IC3, notes that some of its data may be skewed by the tendency of some complainants to report fraud in overly broad terms. "In reviewing statistics contained in this report, it is recognised that consumers may characterise crime problems with an easier broad character, which may be misleading," the report says.

For example, consumers who had been lured by an e-mail phishing scam to a fake eBay site may incorrectly report the subsequent theft of their credit card account information as an act of auction fraud, the report says.

"In such scenarios, many complainants have depicted schemes such as auction fraud even though that label may be incomplete or misleading,' the report says.

To help counteract misleading complaints, the IC3 has launched a public web site, LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com, where consumers can get advice about how to recognise the different forms of online fraud.

The IC3 also notes that the some of the increase in complaints last year may also be related to increased efforts on the part e-commerce sites to make it easier for visitors to report suspected fraud.

"As part of these efforts, eBay and other companies have provided guidance and/or links for their customers to the IC3 web site,' the report says. ìThis activity has no doubt also contributed to an increase in referrals regarding schemes depicted as auction fraud."


Within the U.S. 75 perpetrators of perpetrators are male and come from either California, Florida, New York, Texas, the District of Columbia or the state of Washington. The top 10 locations by share of perpetrators are California, 15.8 per cent; New York, 9.5 per cent; Florida, 9.4 per cent; Texas, 6.4 per cent; Washington, D.C., 5.2 per cent; Washington state, 3.9 per cent; Illinois, 3.3 per cent; Georgia, 3.1 per cent; New Jersey, 2.8 per cent; and Arizona, 2.6 per cent.

The IC3, which refers complaints to law enforcement agencies, was organised in 2000 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Centre.