CNMI joins fight vs Internet fraud

With Northern Marianas residents accounting for big volume of imported items purchased from the mainland United States through electronic commerce, the CNMI government is joining hands with close to 20 countries in a global fight against Internet shopping scam.

This effort is the largest ever international law enforcement project aimed at discouraging e-commerce swindlers from victimizing an emerging market of millions of Internet shoppers around the world.

The project is being advanced by a strong coalition of 143 organizations from 27 countries around the world, including seven U.S. federal agencies, 49 state and local consumer protection agencies and 39 Better Business Bureaus.

Internet-related auction frauds are regarded by federal authorities as the fastest-growing type of fraud in the country.

According to CNMI Consumer Counsel David Lachobay, the international fight against Internet shopping racketeers is particularly beneficial to Northern Marianas residents who regularly purchase goods from the mainland U.S. through e-commerce websites.

“This initiative was of particular importance to the CNMI due to the large amount of electronic commerce between CNMI residents and mainland merchants over the Internet,” Mr. Lachobay said in a press statement.

Director Jodie Bernstein, of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the activities of alleged Internet racketeers have already been documented by anti-Internet shopping fraud advocates from all over the globe.

“The partnership we’ve put together. . .is an amazing and diverse team. Together with our partners, we are putting get-rich-schemes on notice that we’re monitoring the web and that we intend to take law enforcement action against those that continue to make fraudulent claims,” Ms. Bernstein said.

Everyday, millions of Internet users receive too many “trash mails” containing a variety of information ranging from bad credit rehabilitation to auctions of products that were actually not existing.

Just recently, a Southern California man who collected $36,000 from bidders over an Internet auction site, then failed to deliver promised goods, was sentenced to 14 months in prison.

The suspect was also ordered to pay more than $101,000 in restitution, $36,193 of which will go to 31 site users. His sentencing is believed to be the first federal prison sentence related to an Internet auction fraud.

The man has admitted to posting several listings on the Internet site that fraudulently offered digital cameras, laptop computers and other electronic items.

The global coalition of anti-Internet fraud is conveying a strong message that the group would relentlessly and untiringly monitor suspicious websites that threaten the safety of electronic shoppers from the world over.

“Internet con artists are bad guys without borders. We want them to know that the borderless Internet marketplace is not a fraud-fighter free zone,” Ms. Bernstein stressed.

The initiative is, itself, dependent on the Internet with international partners being recruited via e-mail. A step-by-step manual for conducting the surf and collecting evidence was posted on a password-protected website.

Called GetRichQuick.Con, the project was conducted during the week of February 28 by organizations as diverse as the Hong Kong Consumer Council and the University of Texas Law School.

Members surf the Net looking for bogus work-at-home offers, business opportunity scams, pyramid schemes, illegal lotteries and other web sites offering easy roads to riches.

Information on suspicious websites are submitted directly into a database administered by the FTC in Washington D.C. FTC then sends warning e-mails to the targeted sites.

Members of the coalition will continue to monitor the sites to see if changes in claims have been made in response to FTC’s warnings that a coordinated law enforcement effort will be undertaken to shut down the sites that are not responsive to the law.