Posted January 12, 2007

Authorities warn people about escalating Internet scams

People should be wary of the increasing — and increasingly clever —scams that originate on the Internet, police say.

The Outagamie County Sheriff's Department issued a warning Thursday on common scams it is seeing.

The department said the number of reports of e-mail scams and Internet auction frauds is increasing. Officers are also hearing of criminals attempting fraud through Internet chat sites and in response to sales ads.

Sgt. Chris Hammen said fraud is easily prevented with awareness and common sense. Still, county residents too often are losing money.

"I would say that some type of fraud case comes in every day," he said.

Internet auction frauds generally entail use of counterfeit checks or money orders to pay for goods. In other cases, people win an auction, send their money and don't receive the product in return.

Hammen urges people to use Paypal or another third-party payment systems rather than checks or money orders to limit risk.

Computer users should also be skeptical about meeting and chatting with others on the Internet.

Scam artists frequently target people in chat rooms and earn their trust before making a request for money or help cashing a check. Their only true intention is to make some quick cash.

Requests for check or money order cashing should always raise red flags, Hammen said.

In a typical fraud scenario, a scam artist will respond to an ad, send a check or money order at a higher amount and request that a portion of the money is returned through a wiring service.

Soon after the money is wired, victims learn that the money order was counterfeit, and the wired money can't be recovered.

Money lost to fraud isn't often small change.

According to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center, Wisconsin victims who made complaints in 2005 had a median loss of $455.

Among the various types of Internet fraud reported, auction fraud was most prevalent at 64 percent of complaints. Statistics for 2006 still haven't been released.

Authorities say anyone who has suspicions of fraud on the Internet or should call police.

"Use common sense and understand that this is out there," Hammen said.