White-collar crime is estimated to cost the country $300 billion each year, according to the FBI. The term "white-collar crime" was first coined in the 1930s, and, according to the FBI, "these crimes are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and are not dependent on the application or threat of physical force or violence" (see the link to the FBI website below). According to the FBI, the three major areas of cost associated with these crimes are that they can destroy people's personal savings, destroy companies, and cost investors money. These crimes can also cost taxpayers money to investigate and punish, and they can add to the costs of running governmental programs.
One type of healthcare fraud is to steal patients' identifying information and to use it to get fraudulently reimbursed by the government or health insurance companies for providing services to these patients. The costs associated with this type of fraud are the damage to private companies, comprising personal health information, and costing taxpayers money by charging governmental programs for services that were not delivered. In addition, there have been examples (reported on the FBI's website) of doctors submitting millions of dollars in Medicare claims for surgeries or procedures that they did not commit. In this case, insurance companies are damaged, as are taxpayers who have to foot the bill for these governmental programs.
An example of a computer crime (reported on the FBI website) is advertising inexpensive pharmaceuticals that customers can order via the internet without a prescription. These drugs often turn out to be fakes or unapproved substances. The costs associated with this crime are to the customer, and the customer's health can also be affected by taking harmful or ineffective medication. Criminals can also hack into companies' websites, stealing their information. The cost associated with this crime is its destruction to the company.
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