How To Report a Scam

Reporting a scam matters even when the money seems gone. A report creates the official record that reimbursement claims, card disputes, insurance, and identity-theft cases may later depend on; it helps authorities and platforms connect your case to others run by the same criminals; and it can get scam accounts, phone numbers, and websites taken down before they reach the next victim. Reporting is always free — anyone who charges you to 'file a report' or 'open a case' is a scammer.

The order matters. If money was sent or financial details were exposed, your bank or payment provider comes first, because they're the only ones who might still stop or recall a payment — and speed counts. Call the number on your card or in your banking app, explain what happened, and get a case reference. Everything else can follow in the hours afterwards.

Next, report to your national fraud or cybercrime service. Most countries have one central intake point — for example, Action Fraud in the UK, the FTC and IC3 in the US, and Scamwatch in Australia — and our resources directory lists official channels by country. Have your evidence ready before you start: a short timeline of events, the amounts and dates of any payments, the scammer's names, numbers, emails, and usernames, and screenshots. Reports with concrete details are far more useful to investigators than 'I was scammed online'. When you finish, save the reference number — some banks and insurers will ask for it.

Then report to the platform where the scam happened. Every major service — marketplaces, dating apps, social networks, messaging apps, job boards, app stores — has a report function, usually on the profile, listing, or message itself. Platform reports rarely get individual replies, but they're how scam accounts get suspended, and platforms do act on volume: your report may be the one that tips an account over the threshold. If the scam used a website, you can also report the site to the company hosting it or to browser safe-browsing programs, which can get warning screens shown to future visitors.

Some scams deserve an extra report to a specialist body. Investment and trading scams can go to your financial regulator, who may issue public warnings about the fake firm. Scams impersonating a real company are worth reporting to that company — most banks, delivery firms, and government agencies have dedicated phishing-report addresses. Scam text messages and emails can often be forwarded to national reporting shortcodes or mailboxes, which feed directly into blocking systems. And if you handed over identity documents, report the potential identity theft to the relevant national service so there's a record predating any misuse.

Involve the police directly when there's more than money at stake: threats, blackmail or sextortion, a scammer you've met in person, someone who knows where you live, or any situation where you feel unsafe. In many countries routine online fraud is channelled through the national reporting service rather than your local station, but genuine threats to your safety are a police matter everywhere — don't talk yourself out of making that call.

Keep every reference number in one place, along with the date of each report and which organisation it went to. It's normal for some reports to disappear into silence — national services receive enormous volumes and can't investigate every case individually — but silence doesn't mean your report was wasted. Fraud investigations are built on aggregated reports, and takedowns, warnings, and prosecutions grow out of thousands of individual filings exactly like yours.

Finally, be prepared for one unpleasant side effect of being scammed: follow-up scams. Fraudsters share details of people who've paid once, and some victims are contacted by fake 'police officers', 'lawyers', or 'recovery agencies' claiming they've found the stolen money and need a fee to release it. No legitimate agency you've reported to will ever ask for payment to return funds or progress a case. If someone claiming to be from an official body contacts you, hang up and call that organisation back through its official published number before believing anything.