Today, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a federal organization run as a partnership between the FBI and National White Collar Crime Center, released its 2009 Internet Crime Report (.pdf). Highlights include:
- IC3 received 336,655 complaints in 2009, an increase of 22% over the prior year.
- The dollar loss caused by incidents reported to IC3 increased more than 100% to $559.7 million.
- 146,663 complaints were referred to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
- Complaints were typically not referred to authorities when “there was no documented harm or loss (e.g., a complainant received a fraudulent solicitation email but did not act upon it)” or when there was no jurisdictional tie to the United States.
- 16.6% of all complaints involved fraudsters pretending to be affiliated with the FBI.
- 11.9% of all complaints involved a seller’s failure to deliver items purchased online or a buyer’s failure to pay for goods delivered.
