APPENDIX A: DEFINITIONS
Overpayment: An individual is sent a payment/commission and is instructed to keep a portion of the payment and send the remainder to another individual or business.
Advanced Fee: An individual pays money to someone in anticipation of receiving something of greater value in return, but instead, receives significantly less than expected or nothing.
Business Email Compromise/Email Account Compromise: BEC is a scam targeting businesses (not individuals) working with foreign suppliers and/or businesses regularly performing wire transfer payments. EAC is a similar scam which targets individuals. These sophisticated scams are carried out by fraudsters compromising email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques to conduct unauthorized transfer of funds.
Charity: Perpetrators set up false charities, usually following natural disasters, and profit from individuals who believe they are making donations to legitimate charitable organizations.
Civil Matter: Civil litigation generally includes all disputes formally submitted to a court, about any subject in which one party is claimed to have committed a wrong but not a crime. In general, this is the legal process most people think of when the word “lawsuit” is used.
Confidence/Romance Fraud: An individual believes they are in a relationship (family, friendly, or romantic) and are tricked into sending money, personal and financial information, or items of value to the perpetrator or to launder money or items to assist the perpetrator. This includes the Grandparent’s Scheme and any scheme in which the perpetrator preys on the complainant’s “heartstrings”.
Corporate Data Breach: A leak or spill of business data that is released from a secure location to an untrusted environment. It may also refer to a data breach within a corporation or business where sensitive, protected, or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so.
Credit Card Fraud: Credit card fraud is a wide-ranging term for theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism (ACH. EFT, recurring charge, etc.) as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction.
Crimes Against Children: Anything related to the exploitation of children, including child abuse.
Denial of Service/TDoS: A Denial of Service (DoS) attack floods a network/system or a Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) floods a voice service with multiple requests, slowing down or interrupting service.
Employment: An individual believes they are legitimately employed and loses money, or launders money/items during the course of their employment.
Extortion: Unlawful extraction of money or property through intimidation or undue exercise of authority. It may include threats of physical harm, criminal prosecution, or public exposure.
Gambling: Online gambling, also known as Internet gambling and iGambling, is a general term for gambling using the Internet.
Government Impersonation: A government official is impersonated in an attempt to collect money.
Hacktivist: A computer hacker whose activity is aimed at promoting a social or political cause. Harassment/Threats of Violence: Harassment occurs when a perpetrator uses false accusations or statements of fact to intimidate a victim. Threats of Violence refers to an expression of an intention to inflict pain, injury, or punishment, which does not refer to the requirement of payment.
Health Care Related: A scheme attempting to defraud private or government health care programs which usually involving health care providers, companies, or individuals. Schemes may include offers for fake insurance cards, health insurance marketplace assistance, stolen health information, or various other scams and/or any scheme involving medications, supplements, weight loss products, or diversion/pill mill practices. These scams are often initiated through spam email, Internet advertisements, links in forums/social media, and fraudulent websites.
IPR/Copyright and Counterfeit: The illegal theft and use of others’ ideas, inventions, and creative expressions – what’s called intellectual property – everything from trade secrets and proprietary products and parts to movies, music, and software.
Identity Theft: Someone steals and uses personal identifying information, like a name or Social Security number, without permission to commit fraud or other crimes and/or (Account Takeover) a fraudster obtains account information to perpetrate fraud on existing accounts.
Investment: Deceptive practice that induces investors to make purchases on the basis of false information. These scams usually offer the victims large returns with minimal risk. (Retirement, 401K, Ponzi, Pyramid, etc.).
Lottery/Sweepstakes/Inheritance: An Individual is contacted about winning a lottery or sweepstakes they never entered, or to collect on an inheritance from an unknown relative.
Malware/Scareware/Virus: Software or code intended to damage, disable, or capable of copying itself onto a computer and/or computer systems to have a detrimental effect or destroy data.
Misrepresentation: Merchandise or services were purchased or contracted by individuals online for which the purchasers provided payment. The goods or services received were of a measurably lesser quality or quantity than was described by the seller.
Non-Payment/Non-Delivery: In non-payment situations, goods and services are shipped, but payment is never rendered. In non-delivery situations, payment is sent, but goods and services are never received.
Personal Data Breach: A leak/spill of personal data which is released from a secure location to an untrusted environment. Also, a security incident in which an individual’s sensitive, protected, or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an unauthorized individual.
Phishing/Vishing/Smishing/Pharming: The use of unsolicited email, text messages, and telephone calls purportedly from a legitimate company requesting personal, financial, and/or login credentials.
Ransomware: A type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until money is paid.
Re-shipping: Individuals receive packages at their residence and subsequently repackage the merchandise for shipment, usually abroad.
Real Estate/Rental: Loss of funds from a real estate investment or fraud involving rental or timeshare property.
Spoofing: Contact information (phone number, email, and website) is deliberately falsified to mislead and appear to be from a legitimate source. For example, spoofed phone numbers making mass robo- calls; spoofed emails sending mass spam; forged websites used to mislead and gather personal information. Often used in connection with other crime types.
Social Media: A complaint alleging the use of social networking or social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, chat rooms, etc.) as a vector for fraud. Social Media does not include dating sites.
Tech Support: Subject posing as technical or customer support/service.
Terrorism: Violent acts intended to create fear that are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.
Virtual Currency: A complaint mentioning a form of virtual cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Potcoin.
APPENDIX B: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT IC3 DATA
- Each complaint is reviewed by an IC3 analyst. The analyst categorizes the complaint according to the crime type(s) that are appropriate. Additionally, the analyst will adjust the loss amount if the complaint data does not support the loss amount reported.
- One complaint may have multiple crime types.
- Some complainants may have filed more than once, creating a possible duplicate complaint.
- All location-based reports are generated from information entered when known/provided by the complainant.
- Losses reported in foreign currencies are converted to U.S. dollars when possible.
- Complaint counts represent the number of individual complaints received from each state and do not represent the number of individuals filing a complaint.
- Victim is identified as the individual filing a complaint.
- Subject is identified as the individual perpetrating the scam as reported by the victim.
- “Count by Subject per state” is the number of subjects per state, as reported by victims.
- “Subject earnings per Destination State” is the amount swindled by the subject, as reported by the victim, per state.