Abstract
Advance fee and non-delivery frauds have become very common with the growing preference for online shopping and the new opportunities this brings for online offenders. This article uses unique access to a volunteer group’s database focused on preventing pet scams to explore this type of crime. Distances, among other factors, make the purchase of pets online common in countries such as the USA, Australia and South Africa. This modality of purchase has been exploited by organized criminals largely based in Cameroon to conduct advance fee and non-delivery frauds. The article uses data from the volunteer group Petscams.com to provide unique insights on the techniques of the offenders with particular reference to the strategies used to maximize victimization by using real accounts of victims of such frauds. It also briefly notes how the COVID-19 crisis has been used to adapt this type of scam. The article’s discussion identifies the need for a more nuanced assessment into the role of victim oriented voluntary organizations.
Highlights
The global cybercrime economy has co-existed alongside the digital economy since its inception and is currently estimated to be worth at least an estimated $1.5 trillion per year (Mcguire, 2018)
Most of the complainants were identified as being located in the USA with a comparably smaller number located in Australia and South Africa
The huge increases in frauds facilitated by the opportunities from the changes in shopping, that the internet has enabled, have to date only sparked limited interest from criminologists compared to traditional volume crimes (Button & Cross, 2017; Levi, 2016; McGuire, 2018)
Summary
The global cybercrime economy has co-existed alongside the digital economy since its inception and is currently estimated to be worth at least an estimated $1.5 trillion per year (Mcguire, 2018). Platforms may be tailor-made and commoditized for the purpose of providing cybercriminals with means to access a plethora of online tools in what has been defined as ‘cybercrime-as-a-service’ (Mcguire, 2018). The rise in these personalized cybercrime platforms provides online offenders with unprecedented access to illegal products and services such as botnet rentals, virus infection services and crimeware upgrade models in what is becoming an increasingly sophisticated and specialized black market (Ablon & Libicki, 2015; Manky, 2013). The definition of a cybercrimeas-a-service platform lies in its malicious output, whether that is to perform a Distributed Denial of Service Attack attack against a target’s computer, phish for credit card information through targeted emails or to infect a computer with viruses and malware
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