Cyber-crime hitting FBI offices hard
Source: abclocal.go.com
By Joel Doepker
Date: October 30, 2003
Site launched to help win the fight
Mid Michigan — Computer technology is causing the FBI to be overloaded. In the past few years, computer crimes have skyrocketed. The FBI is asking the public for help in fighting cyber-crime.
ABC12's Joel Doepker had more. The FBI office in Bay City is being inundated with local victims of Internet crimes. Agents would prefer the community get in contact with an agency in Washington D.C. first.
With computers becoming cheaper and more common in our society, more and more victims of Internet scams are asking for help. One recent scam involves online auctions.
A person is unknowingly sent a counterfeit $5,000 money order to cash and is asked to send back $3,000. But the money order doesn't clear, costing the person some $2,000.
In the past few years, the FBI has received so many calls from cyber crime victims it's overwhelming for them. They're now asking victims to report their complaints to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center Web site.
"Phones ringing off the hook, we're getting people calling with fraud complaints of all kinds, scams, and many of it, we really won't be addressing at this level," said the FBI's Walt Reynolds.
The IFCC site takes in complaints and tries to match it up with other possible Internet crime reports from all over the world. The agency helps local cyber-crime investigators by doing some of the groundwork they don't have time to do.
There are only a handful of investigators working on local cyber-crimes, trying to cover 21 counties in our area.
Original article
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