Scammers and organized
crime groups are continuing to victimize large numbers of Americans. The FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation) started to regularly send out alerts and
reminders to users of the most popular dating sites and apps. They did this
right after noticing a huge spike in online dating scam complaints. More
victims used the FBI's online fraud reporting tools as opposed to going to the
nearest FBI offices.
Credit card scams and identity theft remain as some of the
country's biggest headaches. Cyber security specialists, financial analysts and
agents of anti-fraud offices of the US government predict a 125% growth in
these scams from 2014 to the end of 2018. Victims who used both traditional and
online fraud reporting systems in 2014 lost a total of more than $8 billion
because of these scams. This means we could be looking at $19 billion of losses
in the next 20 months or so.
Incidents of Web crimes and phone scams among other
fraudulent online and offline schemes are rapidly growing at an alarming pace
in the USA. Money flipping scams closed 2016 with lots of American users being
robbed out of their hard-earned money. Most of these victims used online fraud
reporting tools provided by social media networks to flag these bogus
investment opportunities.
On the other hand, Netflix phishing attacks greeted the
beginning of 2017 with thousands of users tricked into giving away their
private information. Fake WhatsApp offers fooled many unsuspecting users into
chasing non-existent offers of free Internet connectivity, only to be told to
do things that earned money for the authors of these phishing attacks and
deceptive offers. A lot of these victims used the fraud reporting tools of
BigScammers.Com to alert other users about these scams. This significantly
reduced the number of users being victimized by similar types of cyber fraud.
Meanwhile, fraudsters continue to steal the personal details,
financial information and other private credentials of many Americans.
Recently, they exploited the confusion of the general public about EMV credit
card replacements. They used phone scams to victimize their target credit card
holders and bank account owners. Several days after falling for this scam, some
victims went through offline fraud reporting procedures with their banks to
file chargebacks and disputes in an effort to recover the money that they lost
due to unauthorized payments and fraudulent transactions in their credit cards.
So, what works best - Traditional fraud reporting procedures,
or online platforms where you can report scams? Here's what we found out:
Traditional Fraud Reporting Procedures Against Online Scam
Reporting Tools
Most users prefer quicker and easier ways to go through
standard fraud reporting procedures. That's because a lot of them think offline
ways to file crime reports take a lot of time and could waste their energy
traveling to and from relevant government offices.
However, some users still think that they won't be able to
anonymously file their scam complaints through the online fraud reporting tools
that are provided by sites like Big Scammers and the FBI. In reality, these Web
platforms and online communities allow users to choose the details that they
want to include in their online crime reports and scam complaints.
Because of this misconception, some victims still prefer to
go through manual fraud reporting procedures just to make sure that their
personal details and sensitive credentials are kept secure, private and
anonymous at all times. There's nothing wrong with this because they help
expedite the investigations and other campaigns of these organizations against
cyber fraud.
However, not too many offline fraud reporting centers open
their anonymous complaints to the general public. On the contrary, filing fraud
reports in Big Scammers and other online platforms with publicly accessible
user-generated content databases can significantly help other users by
educating them about the newest fraudulent tactics and schemes.
Plus, if you sign up at BigScammers.Com, you'll be able to
receive real time alerts and instant notifications whenever a user posts or
updates any community content in this website. This means you'll be able to
know about the latest scams, which can help you quickly recognize potential
scams with certain similarities to the latest ones you've read. This in turn
enables you to steer clear from trouble.
