Internet fraud, will it be the downfall of the net? What would you recommend?

I saw this headline come through on my site www.2ListNow.com and all I could think was, wow! I try and earn an honest living but it seems the net is filled with folks looking to rip you off :-(


TheInternet fraud 46% of complaints
Federal Trade Commission has released consumer fraud and identity theft complaint data covering January to December 2005. The FTC received over 685,000 complaints during the period with 63% of those related to fraud. Of that percentage, Internet-related complaints.

jg123

 

Well, that means that 54% of fraud is off-line, and people haven't stopped shopping off-line.... but we can always hope

 

I guess what worries me mostly is that it seems that law enforcement is still way behind, while the criminals are on the cutting edge. I sold items and currency for an online game for a few years and there was tons and tons of scammers.

Recently I read a post about a person who spent $30k over a period of a few months buying websites (from one person) with lots of traffic and adsense revenue, only to see the revenue and traffic disappear, obviously purchased traffic was involved, but never disclosed.

jg123

 

Yup, I've read articles of people who used to spend thousands of dollars on virtual currency, pay via Paypal, then do a chargeback. There's many ways to protect yourself, but never will be 100% safe.

Internet fraud doesn't really bother me. Less than 1% of transactions on my site network have been made from fraudulent funds, and as a consumer I know I'm pretty much insured with any internet transaction by card.

It really depends what kind of market you're in. With online gaming currency, it's virtual so easy to steal, no ties, it's mainly computer literate 15-24 year old males who play these games (who I think are the most likely demographic to commit internet fraud) and it's tempting. Compare that to for instance, a family history site with alot of 40-65 year old computer novices, and it'll be a completely different picture.

 

Fraud will become more organised as the net develops. The question really, is who and what will be the primary targets?

 

What I find facinating is these emails that try and steal your Paypal login info. With Paypal and Ebays huge resources you would expect these folks would get caught?

jg123\

 

I think Paypal / eBay do shut down the phishing sites used as soon as they find out about them but the operating window is obviously there long enough for it to be worth the trouble of setting them up.