Is internet crime/fraud getting worse?

[MagicalKingdom]

After reading this thread
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2502602
I have this question in mind... is internet crime/fraud getting worse?
Have you been a victim of internet crime/fraud?

 

[bicker]

Is internet crime/fraud getting worse?

I suspect the answer is yes, but the issue is much deeper than that kind of black-and-white view of things. For example, we're talking about a risk, meaning a probability of something bad happening, not an absolute. Conceptually, if the average crime results in $100K loss, and the chances of being a victim is 0.01% (all made-up numbers), then you'd see that as a negative of $10. That's what you'd compare to the positive aspects of (in that case) using debit cards instead of cash.

So far, afaic, the positives far out-weigh the negatives. One would hope that added policing and enforcement would eventually result in balance, which is still markedly positive, though perhaps not as positive as it was before the entitlement mentality that afflicts our society drove so many folks to commit such transgressions as those you alluded to.

 

[luvmy3]

I didn't vote because my answer would be I don't know.
I don't know anyone who has been a victim, but I know it does happen. Is it getting worse, who knows, maybe, or maybe since now there are a ton of ways companies can profit from consumers getting protection from it, we are just hearing about it more

 

[pogo791]

This is a slam dunk (and I'm a criminologist). Yes, internet crime is increasing (which I assume you mean by "getting worse"), for the simple reason that along with the increase in the use of the internet, the opportunity for crime increases.

More and more people are using the internet to take care of their financial matters, and doing it in different ways. That means that there are more potential victims who do not necessarily know how to protect themselves. For example, many elderly people who are not very computer-savvy often find that their banks are pushing them to shift over to electronic banking.

The offenders are also finding new ways to scam people. The classic advance fee fraud (widely known as the Nigerian fraud or the 419 fraud) still fools a surprising number of people around the world, but as people catch on to this, new variants emerge.

I agree with Bicker that the positives outweigh the negatives. And law enforcement has really evolved both nationally and internationally. The U.S. in particular has been pushing to get other countries to get their act in gear.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

After reading this thread
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2502602
I have this question in mind... is internet crime/fraud getting worse?
Have you been a victim of internet crime/fraud?

Since you are referring to the debit card number being stolen I am going to say my number was stolen twice and it was NOT from the internet.

I KNOW where it was copied.

One was a restaurant in the city and the other was PAC SUN store in the mall.

 

[KristaTX]

Yes, we have had an online company cheat us. We ordered flooring for our new house 3 years ago, and we were lucky that my husband had everything documented. They did not deliver on time, once they learned all of our phone #s they would first hang up on us and then would simply not accept our phone calls, and then when we tried to cancel our order they just delivered the wrong wood flooring. The delivery man (not tied to that company) told us not to accept the order, and we didn't. We were lucky my husband had every single phone call and e-mail and receipt documented. The bank and credit card companies got all of our money back, and it was a hefty sum.

The place had required a check for the first half of the money, which should have been a BIG sign to us that something was up. Plus their name is www.floorus.com. Not Floors are us. Not Floors US. But floorus? Floor us? That should have been another signal to us that something just sounded fishy. The woman we spoke to on the phone (when they were still answering our calls) had a very strong Asian sounding accent, but the location was supposedly in Florida.

I thought about posting this on the DIS at the time so that it might show up when people do an online search of the company. I didn't, but here goes. . .

NEVER EVER buy anything from www.floorus.com. That is www.floorus.com

www.floorus.com is a fraudulent company

 

[Topper]

Why the heck would you include links to a website you advise others not to use?

 

[KristaTX]

So people will know what site I am warning about. If someone warns me about a site, I'd like to know what the site is so that I can avoid it. Why would I not list it?

 

[KristaTX]

The OP asked if we had been victims, so I answered with details.

ETA: On a Google search of the company, this thread now shows up on the first page because I included the website here. That was my intention by typing it several times in my first post.

Here are some links to other complaints about the company's unethical and fraudulent practices:

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/flooruscom--bamboo-flooring-c5094.html

http://www.complaints.com/2007/octo...rdered_flooring__never_received_it_151937.htm

 

[bumbershoot]

After reading this thread
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2502602
I have this question in mind... is internet crime/fraud getting worse?

Like pogo said, the more people use the internet, the more fraud will happen there.

However, that thread had nothing to do with the internet. The most likely place for card numbers (and the numbers on the back) to be stolen is in person, at restaurants and stores. If you're using trusted, safe, websites (*cough* amazon *cough*), unless you have something on your computer, your chance of having something bad happen is much lower than when you hand the server at Chilis your card and she goes off and does who knows what with it.

The offenders are also finding new ways to scam people. The classic advance fee fraud (widely known as the Nigerian fraud or the 419 fraud) still fools a surprising number of people around the world, but as people catch on to this, new variants emerge.

Of course, I'm sure you know that the Nigerian scam started back in snail mail days.

I don't get that one, but I've gotten other scammy things in the post in the last couple years.



Are there people using the internet that shouldn't be? YES. My stepfather's "new" (7 years) wife is one. She sends me, on average, 7 junk forwards a day, including all the email addresses of her contact list, not erasing all the email addresses of those who forwarded it previously. And she wonders why her hotmail was hacked! She probably clicks on links in emails, too. And she took a MONTH to let us know that her hotmail had been hacked, and that was only after I emailed my stepdad that I was concerned about her emails (spammier than usual).

But she's also the type that would fall for a snail mail scam too. Or phone call. She'd probably let someone in the house to scam her. (or maybe I'm extrapolating too much b/c I'm SERIOUSLY annoyed with her handing out my private email address to WHO KNOWS WHO 7 times a day!)

 

[pogo791]

[ . . . ] The most likely place for card numbers (and the numbers on the back) to be stolen is in person, at restaurants and stores. [ . . . ]

To that list, you can add hotels. By coincidence, there was an article on this in yesterday's New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/b...r=1&scp=1&sq=hotel "credit card" fraud&st=cse )

Two quotes from the article:

"A study released this year by SpiderLabs, a part of the data-security consulting company Trustwave, found that 38 percent of the credit card hacking cases last year involved the hotel industry. The sector was well ahead of the financial services industry (19 percent), retailing (14.2 percent), and restaurants and bars (13 percent)."

"At hotels with inadequate data security, “the greatest amount of credit card information can be obtained using the most simplified methods,” said Anthony C. Roman, a private security investigator with extensive experience in the hotel industry. "It doesn’t require brilliance on the part of the hacker,” Mr. Roman said. “Most of the chronic security breaches in the hotel industry are the result of a failure to equip, or to properly store or transmit, this kind of data, and that starts with the point-of-sale credit card swiping systems.”

What this means in practice is that even if you try to be extra careful with who you give your credit card data to, this still won't necessarily protect you. You show up at the desk of a well-known hotel chain as you have done so often before, and they take an imprint of your card. Unfortunately, the sleepy desk clerk leaves that imprint lying around, and someone else gets the opportunity to copy the data.

End result: by the time you get home from your trip and can check your accounts, someone has run up your tab by several hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

 

[Carly_Roach]

I think internet fraud/crime is about the same. The perception can be skewed until you look at it this way:

Before the automobile, people used horses and other modes of transportation (train, streetcar, etc). When people went to automobiles, obviously there were going to be accidents. In the 30's and 40's, about 20 years after the automobile could be massed produced, people could ask this very same question: Are traffic accidents getting worse? The answer could be yes or no.

Yes, because there are more people who own vehicles, therefore the accident rate would go up because of the sheer number of people who own automobiles. But the answer could also be no if you look at the ratio percentages.

If 10% of 10,000 people had an accident each year, that would be 1,000 accidents a year. But if there were 3,000 accidents one year, you may have headlines screaming "ACCIDENT RATE TRIPLES!" because fear sells newspapers. What they wouldn't mention is that there are over 50,000 cars on the road and the accident ratio is actually much lower (6% instead of 10%).

It's all in what you experience and what you choose to believe. If you want to believe that internet crime/fraud is getting worse, then there are many statistics and news articles to back you up. If, however, you wish to believe that it's no worse now than it was in the 1990's, there are just as many statistics and news articles to support that theory, too.

Bottom line, be smart (and perhaps just a tiniest bit paranoid) in your internet surfing and you should be OK.