Internet fraud is not considered a single, distinctive crime but covers a range of illegal and illicit actions that are committed in cyberspace.
[1] It is differentiated from theft since, in this case, the victim voluntarily and knowingly provides the information, money or property to the perpetrator.
Though these scams have some of the highest success rates especially following a major disaster and are employed by scammers all over the world, the average loss per victim is less than other fraud schemes.
[12] On 6 August it was reported that the person behind the scam, which was wholly based outside China, was a British ticket tout, Terance Shepherd.
Some of the methods for stealing gift card data include automated bots that launch brute force attacks on retailer systems which store them.
First, hackers will steal gift card data, check the existing balance through a retailer's online service, and then attempt to use those funds to purchase goods or to resell on a third party website.
In cases where gift cards are resold, the attackers will take the remaining balance in cash, which can also be used as a method of money laundering.
People tend to disclose more personal information about themselves (e.g. birthday, e-mail, address, hometown and relationship status) in their social networking profiles.
In one famous incident back in 2004, Amazon's Canadian site accidentally revealed the true identities of thousands of its previously anonymous U.S. book reviewers.
Through social media and internet searches, investigators discovered that the worker was listed on the team roster and was playing very well.
He first took £68,000 in the name of customs fees and then asked her to directly pay £200,000 to his translator to secure his contractors and store his equipment, totalling the money lost to £320,000.
[18] According to the FBI, on April 26, 2005 Tom Zeller Jr. wrote an article in The New York Times[19] regarding a surge in the quantity and quality of the forging of U.S. postal money orders, and its use to commit online fraud.
This way they can spot the real from the fake, however this is easier said then done, so they advocate users to be cautious when making a money postal orders.
[20] In the United States of America, the penalty for making or using counterfeit postal money orders is up to ten years in jail and/or a $25,000 fine.
The methods these scammers use are they will give these fake products very low prices, they will want to make payments through electronic funds transfers, and they will want to do it right away.