Cyber Crime Complaints Soar

Internet crime complaints are on the rise according to a report released Friday.

The Internet Crime Complaint (IC3) Center received 336,665 complaints in 2009, up from 275,284 the year before. This was an increase of 22.3%

Also increasing was the total amount of money lost linked to online fraud. In 2009 it was nearly $560 million dollars, up from $265 million the year before.

According to the report, "complaints received by the IC3 cover many different fraud and non-fraud categories, including auction fraud, non-delivery of merchandise, and credit card fraud."

Read the full report.

Most of the complaints (16.6%) involved schemes in which the scammer pretended to be affiliated with the FBI.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).