New Yorkers are reporting a lot of internet fraud (and these other scams, cons and concerns)

More than 3,700 New Yorkers reported instances of internet fraud or made other complaints about online issues in 2024 — a 44% spike from the year before, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office.

James’ office said it’s seen an increase in online account takeovers — when a scammer compromises someone’s account so they can steal someone’s personal information, read their messages, gain access to their financial information or credit cards, and even use the account as a springboard to scam friends and family.

Internet complaints were the fourth-most common kind of consumer complaint James’ office received in 2024. The office also took on more than 5,100 complaints about retail sales issues, it said in a recent rundown of New Yorkers’ most common complaints. But cybersecurity experts said a rapid increase in internet fraud may be a sign that fooling victims is becoming easier.

“In general, as we’ve built better and better security systems, the attackers always look for the weak link, and that’s often humans,” said Justin Cappos, a cybersecurity professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

AI tools have made it easier to trick unsuspecting victims with phishing techniques, he said.

“You can have a call that has someone that speaks in a very normal accent and sounds very native and says they’re from your bank,” Cappos said.

So you turn over your account information to what might not even be a real person, but a synthesized voice on the other end — and now scammers have all the information they need to rob your account or use it as a jumping-off point for more fraud.

Cappos said it can be difficult for authorities to intervene in cybercrimes, “and at least in the past they haven’t been very heavy-handed.”

But consumers, he said, can bring a healthy dose of caution to their online interactions.

“People need to be a lot more skeptical about … a random person calling them on the phone and asking them questions and saying they’re from an organization,” he said.

James’ office stressed the importance of using separate, strong passwords for each account — not necessarily long passwords, but ones with combinations of letters, numbers and special characters — and multifactor authentication. Cappos said it’s best to avoid text messages, which aren’t always secure, for multifactor authentication services.

James also recommended New Yorkers enable notifications of account changes so they can respond quickly if something goes wrong, and suggested checking haveibeenpwned.com to see if their account has been caught up in a known data breach.

Other consumer complaints

Overall, retail sales complaints — anything from price-gouging to sales of defective merchandise to just plain poor customer service — were down in 2024, by about 400 incidents.

James’ office said it noticed an increase in price-gouging for eggs and poultry. Gothamist reporters recently spotted prices for a dozen eggs ranging from anywhere between $4 to somewhere over $11 across the city amid the ongoing bird flu outbreak — but price-gouging isn’t the only potential factor.

Stores themselves have been paying widely varying amounts depending on whether they’re part of large chains, whether they get their eggs from big suppliers or local operations, and how much stock they had on hand before a recent surge in supplier charges. The massive cost increase has even made it hard for sellers of NYC’s staple bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches to keep prices down.

James’ office took on more than 3,800 complaints about landlord-tenant disputes in 2024 over matters including security deposits, evictions and tenant harassment. And it warned of ongoing concerns about deed theft — among more than 3,500 complaints about credit, banking and mortgage fraud — which occurs when someone is tricked into transferring away their title to a property.

Last week, James announced an indictment of two people in Queens she said stole a home and $790,000 from an elderly, hospitalized neighbor as he neared death in a nursing home, by forging and falsely notarizing documents to transfer the property. Her office said one of the two people charged in the scheme faked the neighbor’s will, forging the names of the neighbor’s friends as witnesses.

A law that went into effect last year formally established deed theft as a crime and gave the attorney general’s office jurisdiction to prosecute it. Another law that went into effect in 2023 also enhanced civil protections and gave authorities more power to invalidate fraudulent sales or pause eviction and ownership dispute proceedings.

The attorney generals’ office suggested several precautions against deed theft, including hiring your own lawyer (not one suggested by someone interested in your property), having a will, being skeptical of claims someone will let you buy back your property after transferring rights and being wary of fees people or institutions claim they’re charging for loan modifications.

James’ office said it also took thousands of complaints about consumer services, utilities, home repairs, entertainment and travel services.