On this page we provide a complete guide on how to report a scammer online, focusing on cryptocurrency scams.
Unfortunately, there are so many scams online.
Types of online scams include:
- emails scams
- social media hacking and scams
- phishing scams designed to make you provide sensitive personal information such as passwords
- identity theft
- social engineering – which involves being psychologically manipulated to reveal sensitive personal information
- online trading scams (e.g., binary options, forex, CFDs)
- fraudulent e-commerce shops
- dating and romance scams
- malware scams
- impersonation scams
- giveaway scams
- cryptocurrency mining scams and cloud mining
- cryptocurrency investment scams
And the list goes on and on.
We found an excellent article detailing how such online scammers can be reported.
The most difficult situation however in online scams is cryptocurrency scams, in which you often do not know who the scammer is. All you may have is a long string of letters and numbers to which you sent your hard-earned funds in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and which makes absolutely no sense to you.
Is it possible to report a crypto scammer?
How To Report A Scammer Online
Due to the fact that cryptocurrency transactions seem to be anonymous and untraceable, many scammers now use them in their defrauding and illicit activities.
If they charge money with a credit card, you can always have your credit card company process a chargeback.
And the person behind the fraudulent charge can be easily traced due to standard KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures that every payment processor uses.
Get in touch with our affiliated Cryptocurrency Forensic Specialists at CNC Intelligence for free by filling out the form below.
And the same goes for PayPal transactions, bank wires, and most other money transfer methods.
The exception is a cryptocurrency, which can be transferred seemingly anonymously.
So how do to report a scammer online when the money was transferred to them in cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin?
Why Should I Report A Scam?
First of all, it’s important to address why you should report the scam in the first place.
Perhaps you have not lost money or at least not a significant amount of money and you do not want to trouble yourself with reporting the scam.
And even if you did lose money, perhaps you should only spend your time on recovering the money rather than reporting it.
The answer is that the right thing to do is to warn others from falling into the same scam as you did. Chances are that the scammers did not target just you, nor are they satisfied by just scamming you, but they are going to continue defrauding other people as well.
Therefore, consider doing the right thing and helping other people by reporting the scam.
Now let’s see how easy it is to report an online scam.
Report Scam Website
Oftentimes the scammers will be using a website to attract their victims.
In such a case it should be easy to report the scam. You can report it to the domain provider and hosting service, or even to the content management system the website runs on. This can make sure the fraudulent website is removed from the Internet.
To find this information, you can use a whois service, such as whois.com, which shows you the domain registrar (the company from which the domain name was bought) and hosting (the company on whose servers the website’s files are hosted). It also should contain a Registrar Abuse Contact Email and Phone where you can report the scam.
If it’s a phishing website, designed to steal your sensitive personal information, such as usernames and passwords, you can have Google remove it from their index by using their Report Phishing page.
You can also report any online scam to the FBI’s Internet Complaint Center (IC3).
Report Online Scams (Cryptocurrency)
If you are a victim of a cryptocurrency scam, here are the steps you should take to report the scam:
- First, you should file a complaint as soon as possible with the relevant authorities in your locale and in the location where you suspect the perpetrator is located. This includes the police and any government agencies that are tasked with dealing with scams. (Find them by searching for example “government scam report in [country/state]”).
- Secondly, if you were scammed on a cryptocurrency exchange (for example, if you sent money to a scammer from a specific exchange), you should notify the exchange as quickly as you can.
- Make sure to prepare the following information and include it in your complaint:
- Your name, address, telephone number, and email
- Your digital signature
- Detailed information about the scammers
- Transaction IDs (TXIDs) / transaction hash – a string of letters and numbers indicates the transaction’s date and time, sending and receiving addresses, amount, fees, and more information
- Specific details on how you were scammed
- Proof of ownership of the stolen money
- Other relevant information which can help support your complaint
After you report the crypto scam to the authorities, there’s still one more step that you ought to take:
Report it to us. Why?
Well, the authorities might go after the scammers if many complaints have been received about them.
But in the meantime, it would be nice if more people aren’t defrauded by the same scammer.
To prevent that, we offer a scam reporting service, in which we post a public warning regarding every scam complaint we receive.
Of course, any private information you send to us will not be published.
We will just post a general warning about the scam you have experienced in order to prevent others from falling into it.
Once we publish the scam review, it will become indexed in Google and other search engines, and then when potential victims of the scam search the Internet for the scam, hopefully before being scammed, they will come across our scam warning and avoid falling for it.
All thanks to you!
So please contribute to us your scam reports for the benefit of many people.
Another benefit of reporting your scam to us is if you have lost money to the scammers. In such cases, we can often help you get your money back, even if it was sent using cryptocurrency.
To submit a scam report to us, you can leave a reply below any of the articles and pages of our site.
You can also contact us privately or use our live chat widget.
How To Report A Scam Business
One final step you can take after being scammed by a crypto business from the USA or Canada is to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
They even have “CryptoCurrency” as one of the scam types. Between February 13, 2015, and October 12, 2022, more than 2,200 CryptoCurrency scam reports have been made on the site about businesses related to crypto.
Do you know of a scam or questionable site? Report it to us and we will investigate, if it is determined that it is a scam, your report will help us to warn and protect other consumers.
Moreover, if you have lost money for a scam, including cryptocurrency scams, we can help you recover your funds.
Now you know everything you need about how to report a scammer online. If you have additional questions, feel free to ask us!
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I and some of my freinds invest in cryptomine.ltd and after a month they do not let is withdraw our bitcoins.
Sorry to hear your were scammed. Please schedule a free consultation with us to see if and how we can help you.
Hello dear sirs
I and many if my freind have invested in cryptomine.ltd. in the first month, we could withdraw but from 4 days before, we can not withdraw and they do not answer any of our emails.
Best regards