Skip to main content

‘Oh we can’t actually do anything about that’: The problematic nature of jurisdiction for online fraud victims

Cross, Cassandra (2019) — Criminology & Criminal Justice

View Original Source (opens in a new tab)

DOI: 10.1177/1748895819835910 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   Australia
Tags:   Cross Cultural, Jurisdiction, Law Enforcement, Online Fraud, Prevention, Transnational Crime, Victim Experience, Victim Reporting
Citation tools
Download RIS Download BibTeX 


              
              

            

          

        


      

      

    

        
Transparency

        
Evidence and review status

        
This page contains AI-generated content. No human content review or subject-matter-expert review is recorded.

    


    

                    

                
Source basis

                

                    Downloaded PDF
                

            

                    

                
AI-generated page content

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Automated checks

                

                    Passed
                

            

                    

                
Administrative approval

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Human content review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

                    

                
Subject-matter-expert review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

            


    

        
            How this was prepared
        
        

                            

                    
Source basis

                    

                    
RSRC downloaded and privately stored a copy of the paper for internal analysis. The PDF is not offered to viewers from this page.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    PDF added to RSRC:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
AI-generated page content

                    

                    
AI-generated research notes displayed on this page: Synopsis, Identified gaps, Methods, Limitations, Future work. The paper itself is not described as AI-generated.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Document analysis recorded:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                            
  • 
                                    Synopsis generation recorded:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                            
  • 
                                    Page record updated:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Automated checks

                    

                    
The current, source-bound synopsis passed the recorded versioned publication checks.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Checks completed:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                            

                            
                                View passed checks (3)
                            
                            
    
                                                                    
  • Length, completeness, repetition, refusal, boilerplate, and active-markup screening
    • 
                                                                    
  • Numerical claims checked against the available source text
    • 
                                                                    
  • English-source lexical grounding check
    • 
                                                            

                        

                                        

                

                            

                    
Administrative approval

                    

                    
An authenticated administrator approved the bibliographic record for public Library display. This is not a review of every research claim.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Approved for public display:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Human content review

                    

                    
No human review is recorded for the AI-generated content displayed on this page.


                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Subject-matter-expert review

                    

                    
RSRC has not recorded review of this content by a subject-matter or methods expert.


                    
                                        

                

                    

    


    

        Review-state definitions

        Found a possible error?
        Request a correction.
    



    



              

        
                  

            
Synopsis

            
This article investigates how jurisdiction shapes the reporting experiences of online fraud victims in Australia, focusing on how police structure and cross-border rules influence the response to offenses such as advance fee fraud and romance fraud. The author, Cassandra Cross, grounds the analysis in a broader literature on cybercrime and territorial policing, then presents victim narratives drawn from 26 interviews that address where victims were told to report and why those referrals often failed to yield investigation or relief. A central aim is to reveal how misunderstandings of jurisdiction contribute to further harm and trauma for victims. Methodologically, the piece synthesizes interview data with a review of institutional roles, including state/territory police structures and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and traces how victims’ expectations clash with the reality of who has authority over online fraud. The study highlights persistent myths, such as the belief that international crimes automatically fall to the AFP, and documents practical barriers, such as being bounced between agencies across multiple jurisdictions (domestic and international), with some victims required to travel or be unable to pursue in-person reporting. The analysis also notes how evolving reporting mechanisms, notably the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN), seek to streamline where complaints go, though questions remain about how complaints are processed and which agencies ultimately handle them. Overall, the article argues that jurisdictional confusion and limited agency capacity generate negative reporting experiences for victims, amplifying harm and uncertainty. While ACORN represents progress, the piece concludes that further education and transparent, consistent practices are needed to improve victims’ access to help and to clarify law enforcement responsibilities in online fraud cases.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
Before this study, no research had specifically examined how jurisdiction contributes to online-fraud victims' negative reporting experiences or how jurisdictional misconceptions produce harmful outcomes. The article also identifies an absence of victim-centered research on jurisdiction, because prior work predominantly focused on police and other agencies. It further notes a lack of public information about ACORN's routing rules and complaint-processing practices.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
This qualitative article reanalyzed material from a larger Australian study of online-fraud reporting and support needs. The underlying study conducted semi-structured interviews with 80 victims who had reported losses of at least AUD$10,000, recruited through ACCC invitations in five major cities. Interviews were transcribed and coded in NVivo using open and axial coding. For this article, the author examined a prior code on victims being passed among agencies and recoded all transcripts for references to the Australian Federal Police or AFP; 26 interviews mentioned the AFP.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The jurisdiction-focused analysis draws on only 26 interviews in which participants mentioned the AFP, rather than all 80 interviews. Participants were high-loss victims recruited through the ACCC in five large Australian cities, limiting coverage of lower-loss victims and people outside those locations. The data also reflect experiences before ACORN's 2014 introduction, so they cannot establish how current reporting arrangements operate. The article does not determine why state or territory police made inaccurate referrals.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Educate both the public and police about Australian police-agency responsibilities, especially the Australian Federal Police's restricted authority over individual fraud cases. Provide victims reporting through ACORN with greater transparency about how complaints are handled and whether they are referred to a police jurisdiction. Develop collaborative approaches that better overcome jurisdictional barriers in online-fraud responses.

          

              

    
    

        
Related Research Insights

        

            See how this publication connects to RSRC's living evidence syntheses through current citations and research-topic mapping.