What Is ReportFraud.ftc.gov Used For?
ReportFraud.ftc.gov is the Federal Trade Commission’s website for reporting scams, fraud, and unfair business practices you experience. The product page does not investigate your individual case or recover your money directly. Instead, it feeds a shared law enforcement database that helps the FTC and its partners spot scam patterns, build cases, and warn the public.
Editor’s note: As of this writing on September 5, 2026, ReportFraud.ftc.gov’s homepage shows a notice that its reporting service is temporarily unavailable because of a federal government shutdown, and directs visitors to Consumer.ftc.gov for interim guidance. Government service availability can change quickly, so check ReportFraud.ftc.gov directly before you plan to file.
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not legal advice, and it does not promise that any agency, bank, or platform will recover your money. Working families deserve a government that keeps basic consumer-protection tools running so scam victims always have a working front door for filing a report.
FTC Report vs. Police Report: Which One Do You Need?
An FTC report and a local police report serve different purposes, and many scam victims end up needing both. The FTC collects reports for national fraud-pattern tracking and does not open individual case files. A police report creates an official local record that your bank, insurer, or IdentityTheft.gov may specifically require.
Filing with the FTC will not automatically trigger a police investigation, and a police report alone will not add your case to the FTC’s shared national database that other agencies and companies search. If you lost a significant amount of money, if the scammer had physical access to your home or workplace, or if your bank or card issuer asks for a police report number to process a dispute, contact your local police non-emergency line and ask how to file a fraud report. If you’d rather understand how different agencies compare before you decide where to file, this comparison of BBB complaints versus government agency reports covers a related decision many scam victims also face.
Some smaller-dollar scams, particularly online purchase scams for a single low-cost item, may not meet your local department’s threshold for opening a full case file. Even so, most departments will still log the complaint, and that log can matter later if the same scammer contacts other people in your community and a pattern starts to emerge across multiple local reports.
What Evidence Should You Save Before Filing a Scam Report?
Before you file anywhere, gather every piece of contact and payment evidence tied to the scam. This includes screenshots, phone numbers, email addresses, payment confirmations, and any names or business identities the scammer used. Collecting this evidence first means you type it once instead of hunting for it mid-report.
Take screenshots instead of relying on memory, because texts, emails, and social media messages can be deleted by the sender or lost entirely once you block the account. If the scam started with a phone call, write down the exact date, time, and phone number immediately after you hang up, while the details are still fresh. If the scammer used a fake company name, record it precisely, since small spelling variations matter when investigators try to match your report to thousands of others describing the same operation. This kind of upfront organization is similar to the approach in this FCC complaint checklist, which walks through gathering account details and dates before filing a different type of consumer complaint.
How Do You Report a Scam That Impersonates a Government Agency or Business?
If someone contacted you claiming to represent a government agency, your bank, or a company you recognize, report the contact to both the real organization and the FTC. Real federal agencies never call, text, or email demanding immediate payment by gift card, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency, and they will never instruct you to withdraw cash for a courier.
Contact the actual agency or company using a phone number or website you find independently, never one provided by the caller or included in the suspicious message itself. Many federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration and the IRS, maintain their own dedicated fraud-reporting pages separate from ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and reporting directly to them helps close the loop faster. Save the caller ID number, any callback number given, and a plain description of exactly what the caller asked you to do, since these specific details help investigators link separate victim reports to the same underlying scam operation.
What Should You Do If You Already Paid a Scammer?
If you already paid a scammer, contact that specific payment method’s provider immediately, since your process and realistic chance of recovery depend entirely on how you paid. Bank transfers, payment apps, wire services, credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and cryptocurrency each carry different reporting windows and different provider contacts, so identify your exact payment method first.
For a bank transfer or Zelle payment, contact your bank or credit union right away and ask them to attempt a reversal before the funds settle elsewhere. For a credit or debit card charge, contact the card issuer using the number printed on the back of your card, since federal law gives cardholders certain unauthorized-charge protections that vary somewhat by card type and issuer policy. For gift cards, contact the issuer listed directly on the card and keep both the physical card and the receipt, since the issuer will likely request the card number and PIN as part of their investigation.
What Should You Do If You Gave Away Personal Information?
If you shared your Social Security number, bank login, or other personal information with a scammer, go to IdentityTheft.gov in addition to filing with the FTC’s general fraud portal. IdentityTheft.gov builds a free, personalized recovery plan based on exactly what information was exposed, including pre-filled letters for creditors and credit bureaus.
If you’re not certain whether the scammer actually used your information yet, IdentityTheft.gov still offers monitoring steps and fraud-alert guidance to help you get ahead of a problem before it fully develops. If you gave a scammer remote access to your computer or phone, disconnect that device from the internet, update your security software, run a full scan, and change your passwords from a different, uncompromised device before doing anything else at all.
Where Should You Report a Scam? Comparing Your Options
No single agency or company handles every part of a scam, so most victims end up contacting more than one place. The table below compares what the FTC, your bank or card issuer, the platform where contact happened, local police, and IdentityTheft.gov each actually do, helping you decide exactly where to start.
| Where to Report | What They Handle | Can They Recover Your Money? | What to Bring |
|---|---|---|---|
| ReportFraud.ftc.gov | National fraud pattern tracking and law enforcement referrals | No, does not process individual refunds | Dates, contact details, payment method, amount |
| Bank or card issuer | Disputing charges and reversing certain unauthorized transactions | Sometimes, depending on payment type and timing | Transaction date, amount, account number |
| Platform (app, marketplace, social media) | Account-level fraud reports and payment reversals within their system | Sometimes, depending on their policies | Screenshots, transaction ID, scammer’s username |
| Local police | Official incident report for your jurisdiction | No, but may support insurance or bank claims | Government ID, evidence printouts, report number request |
| IdentityTheft.gov | Personalized identity-recovery plan and pre-filled recovery letters | No, focused on limiting further damage | Details on exactly what information was exposed |
If your situation involves more than one type of harm at once — for example, an impersonation call that also led to a compromised bank account — don’t limit yourself to a single row of this table. Work down each relevant row separately, since your bank, the FTC, and IdentityTheft.gov each need slightly different information and none of them automatically shares your report with the others on your behalf. This is a different situation from a company simply refusing to honor a remedy it already promised you, which is more of a consumer dispute than a scam and follows its own separate process.
What Should Be on Your Evidence Preservation Checklist?
Use the checklist below to gather your records in one organized place before opening any reporting website at all. Most people can work through every item in roughly fifteen to twenty minutes, and doing so makes every subsequent report faster, more accurate, and far more complete.
- Screenshot every text message, email, and social media message from the scammer, including the sender’s full username or number.
- Write down the exact date, time, and phone number for any phone calls, right after they happen.
- Save payment confirmations: bank transfer receipts, card statements, gift card receipts, or cryptocurrency transaction IDs.
- Note the total dollar amount lost and the date of each payment.
- Record any name, business name, or “employee ID” the scammer gave you, spelled exactly as stated.
- Save the website address or app listing involved, including screenshots in case the page is taken down later.
- List what personal information, if any, you shared (Social Security number, login credentials, bank details).
- Check your bank and card accounts for other unauthorized charges and note the dates.
- Gather your own contact information and, if you plan to file a police report, a form of government ID.
- Keep physical items — envelopes, gift cards, printed materials — in case police or your bank request them later.
Once you’ve worked through the checklist, keep everything together in one folder, whether that’s a physical envelope or a labeled folder on your computer. You’ll likely reference the same set of screenshots and payment records again if you follow up with your bank, file a police report, or later check the status of your identity-theft recovery plan, so avoid scattering the evidence across multiple devices or accounts.
What Order Should You Report a Scam In?
Most consumers get better results by reporting in a deliberate sequence rather than filing everywhere simultaneously and losing track of what was sent where. Start with whoever can act fastest to limit further financial loss, then move on to the reports that build a longer-term protective record.
First, contact your bank, card issuer, or payment platform the same day you discover the scam, since reversal windows can be quite short depending on the payment method. Second, file with the FTC and, if personal information was exposed, with IdentityTheft.gov as well, since these reports create the documented record other agencies may later request from you. Third, contact local police if your bank asks for a report number or if the total loss is substantial enough to warrant a formal investigation. Finally, if a real government agency or business was impersonated, report that impersonation directly to the organization using contact information you look up independently, never information the scammer originally provided to you.
How Long Do You Have to Report a Scam to the FTC?
There is no strict deadline for filing a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and the FTC generally accepts reports regardless of how much time has passed since the scam occurred. That said, reporting quickly still matters, because faster reports help investigators connect an active scam operation to other recent victim reports before more people lose money.
Time limits matter far more for the payment-recovery side of your response than for the FTC report itself. Credit card disputes, debit card fraud claims, and payment-app reversal requests often have specific windows, sometimes as short as a few days for the strongest protections, so contact your bank, card issuer, or payment platform first and file your FTC and police reports soon afterward rather than waiting until every other step is finished.
What Happens After You File a Report With the FTC?
After you submit a report, the FTC does not contact you individually about the outcome or open a personal investigation into your specific loss. Your report instead becomes part of the Consumer Sentinel Network, a secure database shared with more than three thousand federal, state, and local law enforcement partners across the country.
Investigators use the combined pattern of thousands of reports, not any single report alone, to identify active scam operations, build broader cases, and issue public consumer alerts. Because of this, filing even a small-dollar scam report still contributes real value, since it may be the detail that connects an active operation to a larger pattern other victims have already reported separately.
You generally won’t receive a follow-up call or letter confirming what happened with your specific report, and that silence is normal rather than a sign your report was ignored. If you want to stay informed about scam trends generally, the FTC’s Consumer Advice site publishes public alerts describing active scam patterns, which is a useful way to see the broader impact of the reporting system without expecting a personal case update.
How Do You Protect Yourself After Reporting a Scam?
After you’ve reported the scam and secured your accounts, keep watching your bank and credit card statements closely for at least several months afterward. Scammers sometimes resell victim contact information to other scam operations, so expect possible follow-up attempts, and treat any unsolicited offer to “help you recover your loss” with real suspicion.
Be especially cautious of anyone who contacts you promising to guarantee a refund, recover lost cryptocurrency, or get your case “prioritized” in exchange for an upfront fee. No legitimate government agency ever charges a fee to file a fraud report or to process a refund on your behalf. If you’re ever unsure whether a follow-up contact is legitimate, stop responding and verify the organization independently through its official website rather than any number or link the contact provided.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does filing a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov get my money back?
No. The FTC uses reports for law enforcement patterns and does not process individual refunds. To try to recover a payment, contact your bank, card issuer, or payment platform directly and as soon as possible.
Do I need both a police report and an FTC report?
Often, yes. They serve different purposes: the police report creates a local official record your bank or insurer may require, while the FTC report feeds a national database used to track scam patterns and support broader investigations.
What if I don’t know how the scammer got my information?
Go to IdentityTheft.gov and follow the steps for a suspected data exposure even without a confirmed source. The site provides monitoring and account-protection guidance regardless of how your information was likely obtained.
Should I try to contact the scammer myself to get my money back?
No. Do not attempt to negotiate with, confront, or send additional payments to a suspected scammer. Report the contact information you have to the appropriate agency or company instead, and let your bank or card issuer’s fraud team handle direct outreach if needed.
Where can I check if ReportFraud.ftc.gov is working right now?
Visit ReportFraud.ftc.gov directly, since website availability can change, including during federal government shutdowns. If the reporting tool is unavailable, Consumer.ftc.gov provides interim guidance on what to do if you were scammed.
