WASHINGTON -- Consumer protection agencies from around the world trumpeted on Tuesday their combined total of 251 law enforcement actions this year against what they called the top 10 "dot con" scams on the Internet.
Highlighting efforts to boost global cooperation against fraud on the Net, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unveiled 18 new cases, including six against a relatively new scheme it called "Web cramming."
Targeting small businesses and non-profit organizations, the perpetrators of this scheme offer to build a Web page for free, only to start placing unauthorized charges on phone bills of their victims.
The FTC said that in a Web cramming case, one defendant, not immediately identified, will return more than $3 million to consumers.
"We want the 'dot con' artists to know that we're building a consumer protection coalition that spans the globe," Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said "We aim to make the Net safe for consumers."
The top 10 targeted online scams included auction fraud, service provider scams, Web cramming by supposed site designers and promoters, credit card abuse by information vendors and pornography operators.
Others were offers of business opportunities and "work-at-home" scams, get-rich schemes, travel and vacation fraud, telephone and pay-per-call frauds and health care frauds, the FTC said.
Consumer protection police from Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Britain and the United States took part in Tuesday's coordinated announcement, dubbed "Operation Top 10 Dot Cons."
This year, participants in the drive have brought 251 cases, the FTC said, including 77 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a total of 54 by the FTC, including the 18 unveiled Tuesday.
The announcement was made in conjunction with a meeting of the International Marketing Supervision Network, which links consumer protection enforcement authorities from 29 countries to fight deceptive marketing schemes with a cross-border component.
As the group's current president, the FTC said it was seeking to boost international coordination to protect consumers in an increasingly global marketplace.
"The Internet is revolutionizing the way we gather information, shop and do business," Bernstein said.
The global coordination highlighted Tuesday would help create a climate where electronic commerce can be conducted with confidence, she said in a statement.
The FTC unveiled a new website -- www.ftc.gov/dotcons -- featuring advice to consumers on how to avoid being sucked into Web scams.
In what it called a unique Internet "cramming" case announced Tuesday, the FTC said the defendants mailed $3.50 "rebate" checks to consumers.
When Web users cashed the check, they were unwittingly agreeing to let the defendants become their Internet service provider, and the defendants started putting monthly service charges on their telephone bills.
The defendants made it "nearly impossible" to cancel future charges or receive refunds, the FTC said, adding the amount of consumer redress was now being calculated.
