The Internet Crime Complaint Center Hits 1 Million!
Fairmont, WV-The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has logged its 1 millionth consumer complaint about alleged online fraud or cyber crime. The 1 millionth complaint hit the IC3 system on June 11th, 2007 at 01:26 PM.
IC3 is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).
IC3's mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center went operational in May, 2000 as the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). However, in December, 2003, the IFCC was renamed the Internet Crime Complaint Center to better reflect the broad character of such criminal matters having a cyber (Internet) nexus.
Since it began, IC3 has referred 461,096 criminal complaints to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies around the country for further consideration. The vast majority of cases were fraudulent in nature and involved financial loss on the part of the complainant. The total dollar loss from all referred cases of fraud was estimated to be $647.1 million with a median dollar loss of $270 per complaint. Many of these complaints involved reports of identity theft, such as loss of personal identifying data, unauthorized use of credit cards or bank accounts, and the like. Information from the non-criminal complaints received has been used to detect emerging trends and proactively work to avoid consumer victimization using the resources of project partners and the consumer education website LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com.
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