Internet Crime Complaint Center Releases 2007 Statistics

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3, www.ic3.gov) keeps track of complaints of crime perpetrated over the Internet.  The organization is a joint operation between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center that receives complaints about Internet crime from citizens and forwards them to the appropriate law enforcement agency. 

In 2007, the IC3 received 206,884 complaints of Internet crime of which they referred more than 90,000 to law enforcement.  In total, there was almost $240 million in reported losses, a $40 million increase over 2006.  The full report is available at http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreports.aspx.

One thing that’s interesting is that the number one complaint is Internet auction fraud.  Other complaints include non-delivery of purchases and credit card fraud.  There were also a number of non-fraudulent activities reported such as computer intrusions, child pornography, and spam.