International Law

Men are online fools

When the battle of the sexes moves online, Tom LaSusa explains that men are apparently more likely to be duped by internet fraud schemes:

They say girls develop much faster than boys. At the very least, they appear to be quicker on the uptake when it comes to avoiding getting duped on the Internet.

A study from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) suggests that men are far more likely to be duped by Internet fraud schemes than women. For every dollar that women lost to scammers, phishers, and other Net crooks in 2007, men lost a buck plus an extra 67 cents.

Last year, the IC3 -- a partnership among the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center, and Bureau of Justice Assistance -- received nearly 220,000 complaints of Internet crime. Of the complainants, more than half (57.6%) were male and lived in one of the four most populated states: California, Florida, Texas, and New York.

...

Unfortunately -- and incredibly (in my opinion) -- lack of consumer awareness still plays a major part in why folks are duped.

It's hard to believe that after all these years, people could still believe an e-mail offering "a thousand blessings" -- and a tidy sum of cash -- if only they will help some poor rich family hide their millions in an American bank account!

Or what about an investment scam? Who gets a random e-mail from a stranger with a "sweet tip" on some mysterious stock -- and then dumps their money into it? Apparently New Yorkers, Texans, Floridians, and Californians. Go figure.

Me? I barely trust financial tips from people I know.

Read more here (from Information Week).

Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on April 07, 2008 (boomark / email).