Internet fraud

Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance.^[1] 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, however, differentiated from theft since, in this case, the victim voluntarily and knowingly provides the information, money or property to the perpetrator.^[2] It is also distinguished by the way it involves temporally and spatially separated offenders.^[3]

According to the FBI's 2017 Internet Crime Report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received about 300,000 complaints. Victims lost over $1.4 billion in online fraud in 2017.^[4] According to a study conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee, cybercrime costs the global economy as much as $600 billion, which translates into 0.8% of total global GDP.^[5] Online fraud appears in many forms. It ranges from email spam to online scams. Internet fraud can occur even if partly based on the use of Internet services and is mostly or completely based on the use of the Internet.