According to the U.S Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2004, there were more than 207,000 internet fraud reports in the United States alone. One type of online fraud that most people are familiar with is a scam run on Craigslist where the seller receives an email from a prospective buyer offering to send a cashier’s check to purchase the advertised item. By the time you find out the check is not valid, they have already picked up your product. In addition, they often over pay you for your item in the cashier’s check and ask for money to be sent back to them.

Online fraud has evolved and is no longer limited to strangers and stolen cards. Fraud can even come directly from the people you hire to market your products. A type of this kind of fraud is called affiliate fraud and involves affiliate networks. An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers (affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs. They are the people that you hire to drive customers to your site and manage your affiliate activity.

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