Got it — thank you.
A person on our team reads every report. If yours describes a scam worth warning people about, a stripped-down summary will appear in the feed below.
While you're here:
Recently reported by readers
Summaries of reader reports our team has reviewed and published. Names, numbers, and links are stripped before anything appears here.
Where else to report a scam
Reporting here helps us warn other people, but we're not a government agency — we can't investigate anyone or claw your money back. Depending on what happened, it's worth a few more minutes to file with the people who can.
If you lost money
Start with your bank or card issuer — call the number on the back of the card, not any number from the scam message. Then file with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. For anything that happened online — phishing, investment fraud, account takeovers — also file with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Neither takes long, and those complaints are what investigators actually use to connect cases.
Scam texts
Forward the text to 7726 (it spells SPAM). It's free on the major US carriers and feeds the filtering that blocks that sender for everyone else. Then delete it and block the number.
Phishing emails
Use your mail app's own report button — "Report phishing" in Gmail, "Report > Phishing" in Outlook — so the sender gets flagged at the provider level. You can also forward the email to reportphishing@apwg.org, which goes to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
Impersonation on social media
Report the account inside the app itself; platforms act on in-app reports far faster than anything filed elsewhere. If someone is impersonating you specifically, take screenshots first — accounts often vanish and reappear under a new name.
If the victim is an older family member
The AARP Fraud Watch Network runs a free helpline at 877-908-3360, staffed by people who deal with these cases all day and won't make anyone feel foolish. Your state attorney general's consumer protection office takes reports too, and many have dedicated elder-fraud units.
What makes a report useful
The single most useful thing is the exact wording. Scammers reuse scripts — the same fake toll notice or "your account has been flagged" email goes out to millions of phones with only the link changed. When you paste the message word-for-word, we can match it against what other people are reporting and spot a campaign while it's still running.
After that: the sender's number or address, and any link they wanted you to tap — copied as text, never clicked to double-check. If you spoke to someone, the phrases they used matter more than you'd think. "Do not hang up or the case will proceed" is a script line, and script lines are fingerprints.
These reports also feed something bigger. ScamDrill trains people by sending them safe, realistic practice scams — and realistic means built from what scammers are actually sending this month, not what they sent in 2022. Your report literally makes the training better.
Common questions
Is my report anonymous?
Yes. No account, no name, no email required. If you choose to leave an email so we can follow up, it stays private — never published, never shared.
What happens after I submit?
A person on our team reads it. Reports are private by default. If yours describes a scam worth warning people about, we publish a rewritten summary — with every name, number, and link stripped — in the feed on this page.
Does this go to the police or the FTC?
No — reporting here doesn't open an investigation anywhere. If you lost money, also file with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and the FBI's IC3 at ic3.gov. The section above walks through who to contact for each situation.
Can I report a scam that targeted someone else?
Please do. Reports about a scam that hit your parent, your kid, or a coworker are just as useful — describe what was sent and what happened, and leave out anything you wouldn't want published about them.
What should I leave out?
Your own sensitive details: account numbers, passwords, one-time codes, card photos. We need what the scammer sent, not what they were trying to steal.
The best time to recognize a scam is before it's real.
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