The FTC, FBI, the US Postal Inspection Service and the
Securities and Exchange Commission joined forces a year ago to
start an effort against cyber-opportunists. The initiative, called
Netforce, is also supported by 10 state attorneys general and 11
other state and local agencies.
The internet scams involved on-line auction fraud, advertising
work-at-home “opportunities”, junk mail and securities fraud.
According to the FTC, many of the perpetrators were based in the
Midwest, however they targeted consumers nationwide through spam or
fraud on eBay, Yahoo! and other popular internet auction sites.
In one case, the fraudsters advertised discount web hosting
services such as domain name registry, web page design and
technical support, for monthly service fees of $10 to $15.
Consumers were asked to provide their credit card details for
billing purposes. The fraudsters then crammed additional charges
onto their victims’ credit cards for “excess bandwidth use”.
Many of the cases have already been settled with punishments
ranging from simply shutting down fraudsters’ web sites to prison
sentences of up to 12 years.
The FTC says that the schemes took more than $2 million from
consumers. The National Consumer League estimates that last year US
consumers lost $6.1 million to internet fraud.
