Online fraud scammers and victims: comparing offenders’ modos opperandi with online fraud targets’ victimization reports

• In Event: Offenders and Victims of Computer-Assisted Crimes

Abstract

Do online scammers target specific individuals in their attempt to defraud online users? If yes, do online users’ reports of online fraud victimization coincide with offenders’ efforts? This project seeks to answer this question by comparing and contrasting data from two independent data collection processes. First, data on online scammers who contacted fake users of the classified website Craigslist allow us to identify online scammers’ preferred targets of online fraud. In parallel, a survey of college students allows an estimation of online victimization experiences among a sample of online users. Taken together, these sources allow us to contrast the probability of becoming a cyber-criminal’s target with the probability of experiencing online fraud victimization. Preliminary findings indicate that although online scammers are equally likely to target male and female victims, they approach male and female victims through different means and using different messages. Despite equally targeting both gender, males are 17% more likely to report being victims of cyber-crimes than females. We explore computer behavior by gender to explain those differences in victimization awareness.

Authors

• Youngsam Park, University of Maryland

• Mateus Renno Santos, University of Maryland

• David Maimon, University of Maryland