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.