And there are plenty of others, including some that offer employment opportunities too good to be true and outlandish profits in prime bank notes, international bank loans and foreign currency exchange. Peters cautions that less sophisticated Web users who feel they've missed the boat on investment opportunities can be setting themselves up to be fraud victims. Those who don't tread carefully can file online complaints with a variety of agencies, including the National Fraud Information Center. They also can go to the FTC and its sister law enforcement agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission for online stock frauds and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for currency exchange frauds. Online auction sites such as EBay Inc. also provide their own e-mail complaint forms.
Consumer groups warn that information available there can be planted, though.
They add auction sites are working to improve the feedback feature. And Internet service providers, such as America Online Inc., also have e-mail complaint forms to report fraud. By Sheila Riley.