Where to report a crypto scam (and why one form is rarely enough)

Agencies triage thousands of complaints. Your goal is to be easy to triage: concise narrative, hashes, and attachments. Cross-link: romance scam crypto and first 24 hours.

United States: IC3 and local police

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) accepts online reports for internet-enabled fraud, including many crypto schemes. Filing does not guarantee investigation, but it contributes to pattern detection and may support later subpoenas. Also file with your local law enforcement if they accept cybercrime reports—a local report number can matter for victim support programs or insurance. Procedures change; verify current URLs on official government sites before submitting.

Consumer protection and payments rails

Where fiat moved through banks or cards, report to relevant consumer protection bodies (for example FTC complaints in the U.S. where applicable). Chargebacks and bank fraud rules differ from crypto rules; parallel tracks sometimes recover small fiat portions even when on-chain funds are gone.

Platform-level abuse

Report impersonation accounts, fraudulent domains, and malicious apps to the hosting provider, registrar, social network, and app store. These takedowns rarely return funds but can prevent the next victim and preserve evidence screenshots for your case file.

Package your on-chain evidence once

Instead of retyping the same story for every portal, maintain a master document: timeline, addresses, hashes, and links to archived scam pages. Analysts can refine that into a formal tracing report for counsel or exchanges.

International victims

Your national cybercrime unit may have its own portal (Action Fraud in the UK, ACSC in Australia, etc.). Jurisdiction shopping is a legal strategy for lawyers, not victims improvising alone—see cross-border fraud for framing.