I decided that it was high time that I spent a day working from home and getting all those little jobs done that I have been putting off when working in the office. For one thing there is the little matter of writing a newsletter, updating my contacts list and getting the publication out. Fraud investigations simply do not just appear on the desk out of thin air.

While considering what was newsworthy I decided to review my web marketing efforts for my fraud investigation work. It seems that as a budding author there are so many opportunities to write about your work that it is difficult to know where best to start. Take for instance HubPages. I have written about fraud investigation here and believe it is a good forum for articles directed back to your business marketing site.

So we are back to marketing fraud investigation services using the Internet. If I am successful in doing this I believe that the knowledge picked up will also be an invaluable tool in my cybercrime investigations. The Internet is a unbelievably massive entity, and learning how to navigate properly through it is both an art and a science. Google, Yahoo and many others are familiar faces, representing massive amounts of financial activity – not only within their own businesses but those that interact with them to build their own (including mine). The potential for new and innovative frauds is immense.

Investigating these new frauds will not be easy, it will be daunting. However, armed with the knowledge of how the Internet works, how the various marketing activities are managed and how the financial interaction is organized will allow the basic concepts of “follow the money” to be adhered to in any fraud that needs investigating!

So when it comes to developing my fraud investigation services around the UK and much further afield using the Internet to reach many more victims of fraud that simply don’t want to turn to their usual, often expensive and inexperienced accountants to deal with the problem I will be mixing my circulated newsletters and face to face meetings with my network of contacts with a large measure of on line marketing!

It is hard to believe that I have a physics degree and that I learned all about how computers worked, how to install binary operating language, how to write  a couple of different programming codes and even how the solid state electronics found in micropchips were configured.  Why, because when computers started to become available as desktops I was the biggest cyber luddite to be found.  I was dragged screaming and kicking into the computer age and eventually succumbed to an Amstrad with no hard drive in about 1990.  Well my phisics degree was awarded over 30 years ago!

So now as a fraud investigator I realise that it is important to be familiar with all aspects of cybercrime.  All businesses use computers and it is hard to spend money now without some form of electronic device involved.

Two thirds of UK households use the Internet with online purchasing a massive growth area.  It is not surprising that the threat of cybercrime is on the increase and we fraud investigators need to be ready with the appropriate tools and knowledge to deal with it.

Much of the crime being carried out is the same old frauds simply using the electronic medium of email for communication.  For example the Nigerian 419 scams that solicit bank details or up front payments in advance fee frauds used to be posted out to contact details from telephone directories.  This was a costly (the price of stamps) and time consuming excercise.  Now with a press of the return key any number of 419 letters can be sent to unsuspecting recipients on an email database.

Other frauds being committed via the Internet include identity “phishing”, spyware to extract bank and credit card details and fraudulent selling sites.  Many valueless schemes for getting rich quick are available for the gullable and often greedy customer waste their hard earned savings on.  These selling schemes exploit the vast nature of the Internet – by optimising your web site for a keyword such as “easy money” you will receive 1000s of interested browsers every day.  It is a numbers game.  For every 1000 web site visitors you might get one person to part with their £50 or $100 for a “guaranteed business plan that works”.

Business opportunities that succeed require hard work.  Those that do and those that are merely scams are reviewed in Business Opportunity Market – before paying for that Import Export course it might be worth a quick bit of research!