Online fraud cost merchants $2.6 billion in 2004, according to a report released by research company eMarketer Tuesday. But, except for online auctions, fraud accounted for just one-tenth of 1 percent
of total business-to-consumers sales last year, according to the report. Forty-eight percent of the Internet fraud complaints to the Federal Trade Commission last year were related to Web auctions,
while 17 percent concerned catalog sales and 10 percent were related to Internet access services.
--W.D.