Lock Your Digital Door

Motley Fool

Common sense says that you should lock your doors and windows to prevent thieves from entering your house. The advice is no different when dealing with digital crooks.

According to the FBI's Crime Complaint Center, computer users logged more than 270,000 cases of potential Internet-based fraud during 2006, resulting in $198.4 million in losses -- or $724 per complaint.

Sadly, few of these schemes were particularly sophisticated. Nigerian email fraud, for example, had the highest median loss, at $5,100. That's why fellow Fool Bill Mann has said that if it's from Nigeria, hit delet.

But suspiciously polite Nigerians have nothing on auction fraudsters, to whom the FBI attributed 44.9% of complaints. Auction fraud, as it turns out, is not unlike what the sub-Saharan scammers proffer.

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