Online auctions account for the majority of complaints about Internet fraud, according to a new report from the FBI.
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center, a joint operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center, said Wednesday that auction fraud accounted for nearly 43 percent of the complaints received from victims and referred to law enforcement groups.
Nondeliverable merchandise and nonpayments were the next largest category, accounting for 20.3 percent of complaints. The so-called Nigerian Letter, a scam in which an alleged Nigerian official seeks help moving money between bank accounts, accounted for almost 15.5 percent of the complaints.
The IFCC, which was launched about a year ago, compiled statistics for all of 2001, gathering some 50,000 complaints. It referred 16,755 Internet fraud complaints to law enforcement or regulatory agencies.