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Tag: reporting

  • Reporting a Scam in Bangladesh: 999, the Cyber Police Centre and Bangladesh Bank

    Start with a warning, because this one is doing active harm. Several guides currently tell Bangladeshi scam victims to report at cybercrime.gov.bd. That address is not a government portal. It serves an empty directory behind a certificate issued to an unrelated private domain and expired in December 2025. Do not send anything there.

    Here is what actually works.

    999, while the money is still moving

    The national emergency number takes crime reports, and for a transfer made in the last few minutes it is the fastest lever you have. Use it before you start looking for a form.

    The Cyber Police Centre

    The Criminal Investigation Department runs the Cyber Police Centre, which is the unit that handles online fraud, account takeovers and blackmail. It answers around the clock on +8801320010148 and +8801320010146, and by email at [email protected]. In person, it is at the CID complex in Malibagh, Dhaka.

    A note on the online complaint portal that carries this unit’s name: it runs on a .org address maintained by a private contractor rather than on a government domain. It looks legitimate and the contact details on it match the official ones, but a police portal on a non-government domain is also exactly what a cloned site looks like. If you use it, reach it from a link on an official page, and prefer the phone numbers above if you have any doubt.

    Your bank or wallet first, then Bangladesh Bank

    For money taken through a bank account, bKash, Nagad or Rocket, complain to the provider first and insist on a written final response. Bangladesh Bank’s complaint cell covers mobile financial services as well as banks, on 16236 and at [email protected] — but its published procedure requires a copy of the provider’s final decision before it will take the case. It is an escalation route, not a first stop.

    So the sequence is: provider, in writing, then the central bank if the answer is unreasonable. Keep every reference number the provider gives you.

    The technical incident: CIRT

    The national computer incident response team takes reports at cirt.gov.bd/report-incident. It is shaped around security incidents rather than consumer money losses, so use it for the phishing site, the compromised account or the malware, and not as a substitute for the police report.

    The impersonation to expect

    CIRT itself published an alert about a scam platform telling users that the national CERT was supervising its finances, in order to extract “withdrawal processing” and “verification” fees. CIRT states plainly that it never handles money and never asks for payment. Neither does any other agency here. Any message claiming an official body is holding your funds pending a fee is the second scam, aimed at people already caught by the first.

    What to have ready

    Screenshots of the whole conversation with the number or profile visible, the transaction IDs from your wallet or bank statement, the receiving number or account, the dates and amounts, and the address of any web page involved. Take the screenshots before blocking anyone.

    The website itself

    None of these bodies takes a page offline quickly. The company hosting it and the registrar that sold its domain can, and usually within hours if you send them the exact address, a screenshot, and one line about what the page does.

  • Reporting a Scam in Pakistan: NCCIA, the Banking Mohtasib and the 30-Day Clock

    If you are looking for the FIA’s cybercrime wing, it no longer exists. It was replaced by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, established in May 2024 and fully operational from April 2025, and that is now the body that takes cybercrime complaints. Most search results, and most advice you will be given, are still a year out of date.

    Your bank, on the day

    Call the bank or wallet that moved the money first, on a number from your card or the app. Ask for the transaction to be recorded as disputed and get that in writing, by email or SMS; you will need proof of the date you complained.

    The bank has thirty days to resolve it. That clock matters, because it is the gate to the only route that can order your money back.

    Banking Mohtasib: the route that can actually order a refund

    The Banking Mohtasib is Pakistan’s banking ombudsman, at bankingmohtasib.gov.pk, and it can direct a bank to make good your loss. That makes it more useful, for a money loss, than any complaint portal.

    Two practical points. If the thirty days have passed, or the bank has already rejected you, you can go straight there — a rejection means you do not have to wait out the clock. And use the online complaint form rather than the paper one: the postal route requires the form to be attested by an Oath Commissioner and sent to Karachi.

    It has limits worth knowing before you invest hope in it. The Mohtasib has no jurisdiction over microfinance banks, investment banks, or the State Bank itself. If your money went through a microfinance institution, this door is closed and the police route is what you have.

    The State Bank also runs its own complaint service, Sunwai, at sunwai.sbp.org.pk, in English and Urdu.

    NCCIA: the criminal complaint

    The agency takes complaints through its portal at complaint.nccia.gov.pk, and publishes 1799 as its helpline. There are also Cybercrime Reporting Centres you can walk into; the office list is on the agency’s own site. Walking in is slower but harder to ignore, and for anything involving a named suspect it is usually what happens anyway.

    One rule catches overseas Pakistanis out: if you live abroad, the agency requires you to nominate someone resident in Pakistan as the focal person for the case. Decide who that is before you file, not after.

    What to have ready

    A copy of your CNIC, a written statement of what happened in plain order, screenshots of every message and page, and the transaction references from your bank. For the banking complaint, add the date you first told the bank and whatever it said back.

    What no portal here can do

    Take down the website. That is the hosting provider’s job and the domain registrar’s, and a short abuse report to them naming the exact address is usually the fastest result anyone gets — hours, against months for a case.

    And be ready for the follow-up call. People who have lost money once are contacted again by someone claiming they can recover it, often posing as an agency or a bank’s recovery cell. No Pakistani agency charges a fee to return your money.

  • Reporting a Scam in Ireland: Your Garda Station, ComReg and the Ombudsman

    Ireland is unusual among English-speaking countries: there is no national online fraud reporting portal and no national anti-scam hotline. The official route, in the government’s own words, is to contact your local Garda station and take screenshots of everything. Knowing that in advance saves an hour of looking for a form that does not exist.

    Your bank, then the Garda station

    Call your bank first, on a number you already have. Then report the crime at your local Garda station — the directory is at garda.ie, and 999 or 112 if it is an emergency. Stations accept reports in person; the email addresses in the directory are monitored only periodically during business hours, so a walk-in or a phone call is faster.

    Serious and organised fraud is handled by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, but it has no public intake channel: cases reach it through the station where you reported.

    Scam calls and texts: ComReg

    The communications regulator takes reports of scam calls and texts on 01 804 9668, by email, or by texting the word COMREG to 51500 for a callback. Its advice line is open Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00, and Saturday morning.

    ComReg does not work individual cases; it works the network. It blocks spoofed numbers, maintains a protected-number list and a do-not-originate list, runs a registry for SMS sender IDs, and operates a voice firewall. That is the lever that actually reduces these calls, and reports are what aims it.

    One myth it debunks directly: going ex-directory or joining an opt-out register will not stop scam calls, because the callers dial number ranges and note which ones answer.

    Investment offers and unauthorised firms

    Check any firm against the Central Bank’s registers at registers.centralbank.ie before you send money, and report an unauthorised firm through the Central Bank’s own form. It publishes warning notices — but it does not investigate individual consumer complaints, so this is a check-and-warn route rather than a redress one.

    When the bank says no: the Ombudsman

    If your bank refuses to refund you and you think it is wrong, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman can make a decision that binds the provider, free of charge. There is one procedural gate that catches people out: you must exhaust the provider’s own complaints process first and have its Final Response Letter before the Ombudsman will take the case. Ask for that letter explicitly.

    What FraudSMART is and is not

    FraudSMART is the banking industry’s awareness campaign. It publishes good, current alerts about what is circulating in Ireland, and it is worth following. It takes no reports and recovers nothing. The consumer commission likewise does not handle individual complaints; it uses complaint data to spot market-wide problems.

    What to have ready

    Screenshots of every message, the number or address that contacted you, the amounts and dates, the account you paid, your bank’s transaction reference, and — for the Ombudsman — the provider’s Final Response Letter. The government advice repeats the screenshots point twice, which tells you how often reports arrive without them.

    Why Ireland gets hit

    Research commissioned by ComReg put the annual quantifiable harm from scam calls and texts at around 309 million euro, from roughly a thousand fraud cases a day. Its explanation for the volume is unglamorous: Ireland is English-speaking, so fraud operations aiming at the anglosphere include it by default.

    Two things that follow

    First, expect a second approach — ComReg warns that people who have been scammed are contacted again by someone offering to recover the money for a fee. Second, if the scam has a website, report it to the company hosting it and to the registrar that sold the domain. They can take it down in hours, which no Irish public body can.

  • Reporting a Scam in New Zealand: 105, the NCSC and Internal Affairs

    New Zealand keeps its scam reporting simple, which is a virtue until you need to know which of the four routes actually does the thing you want. Money, crime, technical incident, and spam are four different desks.

    The bank, in the first minutes

    Consumer Protection puts it as plainly as any government page anywhere: contact your bank immediately, because the sooner the bank knows, the greater the chance of getting the money back. Use the number in your banking app, not one from any message you have received.

    New Zealand banks have signed up to anti-scam commitments in their Code of Banking Practice, and if you are unhappy with how your bank handles your case, the Banking Ombudsman Scheme can review it once the bank’s own complaints process is finished.

    105 is the police report

    If you have lost money, report it to the Police on 105 — free, 24 hours, or online through the 105 service. Call 111 instead if it is happening right now or someone is in danger. Note that the old police scams advice page is gone; 105 is the route.

    The NCSC, for the technical side

    Report the incident itself — the phishing site, the account takeover, the malware — at ncsc.govt.nz. The National Cyber Security Centre absorbed CERT NZ, so if you are looking for CERT NZ, or find a government page still naming it, this is where it went. The NCSC helps you understand and contain the incident; it does not recover money or prosecute.

    Spam texts and emails go to Internal Affairs

    The Department of Internal Affairs enforces the spam rules and takes reports of scam TXT messages and emails at dia.govt.nz. Two limits worth knowing: it covers text, email and fax only, and it does not investigate unsolicited phone calls, postal mail or pop-ups. Investment offers from unlicensed operators belong with the Financial Markets Authority instead.

    IDCARE if your identity is exposed

    IDCARE is free and covers New Zealand on 0800 121 068. If a scammer has your passport, licence or IRD details, it will build you an ordered plan for replacing documents and notifying the right agencies, which is the part people find hardest to work out alone.

    What to have ready

    Screenshots of the messages and the site, the account or payee details you paid, the amounts and times, the number or address that contacted you, and your bank’s transaction reference. Take the screenshots before you block anyone.

    The honest expectation

    Consumer Protection does not soften it: most scams come from overseas, and it is very difficult to get money back once it has been sent there. That is an argument for speed on the day, not for skipping the report — the report is what makes the next person’s warning possible.

    And the second approach

    Official New Zealand advice lists this as a step in its own right: some scammers target people who have just been scammed, including by pretending to be an agency that can return all your money for a fee. Nobody legitimate will ever ask you to pay to get your money back.

    The page itself

    If the scam has a website, the fastest takedown is not a government one. The hosting provider serving the page and the registrar that sold its domain can both remove it, usually within hours of a clear report that names the exact address and what the page does.

  • Reporting a Scam in Canada: The National Portal, the CAFC and Your Local Police

    Canada moved its fraud reporting to a single national portal, and the part most people get wrong is what happens after. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is a repository, not an investigator. The investigation, if there is one, belongs to your local police — and that only happens if you also report it there.

    Call whoever moved the money

    Your bank, credit union, card issuer, or the wire service or payment app you used. Do it before anything else, and do it by phone. A transfer that has not been collected can sometimes still be stopped; one that has been is a matter for the receiving institution, which your bank has to contact.

    There is no Canadian equivalent of a statutory scam-refund right, and no national hotline that recovers money. What your card network or your own bank offers depends on how you paid and on their policy, so ask them directly what protection applies and get the answer in writing.

    Report Cybercrime and Fraud

    The national portal is reportcyberandfraud.canada.ca, run jointly by the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. It replaced the older Fraud Reporting System, and some government pages still use the old name. You can also call the CAFC on 1-888-495-8501, Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 16:45 Eastern.

    You can report anonymously. The centre estimates that fewer than five per cent of fraud victims report at all, which is why patterns take so long to surface and why your report is worth more than it feels.

    And then your local police

    The CAFC says it plainly: “It’s the role of your local police to investigate.” File with them if you lost money, and keep the file number — insurers and banks ask for it. Call 911 instead if you are in immediate danger.

    Texts, spam and the CRTC

    Forward a scam text to 7726, free on Canadian carriers; it goes to the carrier and improves its filtering. Report spam email and texts to the Spam Reporting Centre at fightspam.gc.ca, which feeds anti-spam enforcement against senders. Neither reaches the police.

    Misleading advertising and deceptive marketing belong with the Competition Bureau. Investment fraud belongs with your provincial securities regulator, not a federal one — that is a common wrong turn. Tax impersonation calls can be checked with the Canada Revenue Agency on 1-800-959-8281.

    If your identity is in play

    Place a fraud alert with both credit bureaus, Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, and ask for your credit report. Replacing documents is provincial: your birth certificate, driver’s licence and health card come from the province or territory that issued them. Social Insurance Number misuse goes to Service Canada.

    What to have ready

    The Competition Bureau’s own checklist is the best one published in Canada. The name the person used and what they wanted. The phone number. Screenshots of the key pages, including the payment page and terms. The exact web address, copy-pasted rather than retyped. Receipts, cancelled cheques, emails, texts and chat logs. Keep the originals safe; they may be evidence later.

    The scam that follows the scam

    The CAFC warns that fraudsters impersonate the CAFC itself, claiming to be investigating your case or offering to get your money back from an earlier one. No agency does that, and no agency charges a fee to return money. Treat any such call as the second attempt on you, because that is what it is.

    One more party nobody mentions

    The page itself. It runs on a hosting provider and a domain sold by a registrar, and those two can take it down far faster than any complaint process. A short abuse report with the exact address, a screenshot and one line about what the page does is the single most effective message you can send.

  • Reporting a Scam in Australia: Scamwatch, ReportCyber and Your Bank

    Australia has two national reporting routes and they are not interchangeable. One collects intelligence and disrupts scams at scale. The other is the actual police report. Most people file the first, assume they have done the second, and wonder why nothing happens.

    Your bank first, and immediately

    Nothing else on this page can move money. Call your bank the moment you realise, on the number on your card or in the app. Ask them to stop or recall the payment and to put a freeze on the account if your details are exposed.

    Be aware of what Australian law currently does and does not give you. The Scams Prevention Framework became law in 2025, but the obligations it places on banks, telcos and digital platforms mostly start on 31 March 2027, and the industry codes are still being drafted. Until then there is no general right to a refund for a payment you were tricked into authorising. Banks can and do refund case by case; they are not yet required to.

    Scamwatch records it. It cannot answer you

    The National Anti-Scam Centre runs Scamwatch at scamwatch.gov.au. Report there, because the aggregate is what drives disruption: with your consent the centre works with platforms and providers to get scam websites, ads and contact details taken down.

    But read what the form itself says. “We can’t respond to reports made through this form.” And: “This is not an official police report.” Scamwatch will not investigate your case, contact you, or recover your money. It is a national sensor, and you are one of its readings.

    ReportCyber is the police report

    For the actual crime report, go to cyber.gov.au/report-and-recover/report. ReportCyber routes your report to the police in your state or territory, and gives you a reference number you can use with your bank and your insurer. An investigation is not guaranteed; a record that can be matched with other reports is.

    If a scammer is impersonating an Australian business rather than defrauding you directly, the relevant body is your state or territory fair trading office, not the federal regulator.

    IDCARE, when it is your identity rather than your money

    IDCARE is a free national service on 1800 595 160 that builds you a personal response plan: which documents to replace, in what order, and who to tell. If a scammer has your licence number, passport details or Medicare number, that plan is worth more than another report. IDCARE also covers New Zealand, on a different number.

    If your complaint is really about how your bank handled things, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority is the escalation route once the bank’s own process is done.

    Texts and calls

    Australia has no national SMS short code for forwarding scam texts. If you have seen 7726 recommended, that is the UK and Canadian code and it does not apply here. Report the message to Scamwatch, report it in your phone’s messaging app, and block the number.

    Impersonation of government services has its own direct lines, which are worth using because they can check whether a call was real: Services Australia and myGov on 1800 941 126, and the Tax Office on 1800 008 540.

    What none of them do

    None of these takes a scam page offline by itself. The page is served by a hosting provider under a domain name sold by a registrar, and those two companies can remove it within hours of a clear abuse report. That report is yours to send, and it is usually the fastest result available anywhere.

    Expect to be targeted again

    Scamwatch’s own figure: one in three people who are scammed are scammed more than once. The follow-up is usually someone offering to recover the money you lost, for a fee, sometimes claiming to be from a government agency. There is no such service, and no Australian agency charges to return your money.

  • Reporting a Scam in the UK: Your Bank, 7726 and [email protected]

    Reporting a scam in the UK means talking to three different organisations, and none of them does all of it. One is about your money, one is about the crime, and one is about the message or the website. Doing all three takes about fifteen minutes.

    Your bank comes first

    If money has left your account, call your bank before you report anything to anybody else. Use the number on your card or in the banking app, not one from the message that caught you out. Ask them to stop or recall the payment and to freeze the card or account if the details are compromised.

    Since 7 October 2024, banks have had to reimburse most people who were tricked into sending a payment to a fraudster, and the rules say within five business days of the claim — though a firm can stop that clock while it gathers information, there is a cap of £85,000, and some banks apply an excess. Reporting quickly, and being straight about what happened, is what makes that process run rather than stall.

    The crime: reportfraud.police.uk

    Fraud in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is reported at reportfraud.police.uk, or on 0300 123 2040 if you would rather talk to someone. The report goes into the national fraud database, where it is matched against other reports; a single report rarely produces an investigation, and a hundred matching ones often do.

    In Scotland it is different: contact Police Scotland on 101, or through the contact form on their website. If a crime is happening right now or someone is in danger, that is 999 wherever you are.

    You will be given a reference number. Keep it. Your bank, your insurer and your employer may all ask for it, and it is the only thing that proves the report exists.

    The message: 7726 and [email protected]

    Forward a scam text to 7726 — it spells SPAM on a keypad, it is free, and every mobile network in the UK accepts it. You will get an automatic reply asking for the sender’s number; sending it back is part of the process and is safe to do.

    For a scam call, text the word Call followed by the caller’s number to 7726 instead.

    Suspicious emails go to [email protected], run by the National Cyber Security Centre. Forward it even if you are not sure — you are not wasting anybody’s time, and the service is automated on the way in. Scam websites have their own reporting form on the NCSC site. Millions of reports have gone in this way and tens of thousands of scam sites have been removed as a result, but you will never hear the outcome of your own, which is the trade-off for a service that can run at that scale.

    What each one can and cannot do

    Your bank can move money and block cards. The police can investigate a pattern. The NCSC can get a site taken down and the message blocked. None of them can do the other two jobs, which is why “I reported it” so often ends in “and nothing happened” — the report went to the party without the power to act on that part of it.

    There is a fourth party nobody mentions: the company hosting the page, and the registrar that sold its domain name. A clear abuse report to the host — the exact address, one sentence on what the page does, a screenshot — is frequently the fastest way a scam page comes down, faster than any official route.

    If you clicked, or entered something

    Change that password on the real site now, and anywhere you reused it, then turn on two-step verification. If you gave card details, call your bank. If you read out a one-time code to someone on the phone, assume they are inside the account already and use the provider’s account-recovery process rather than a password change.

    If you installed anything they asked you to install, particularly remote-access software during a “bank security” or “tech support” call, treat the device as no longer yours. Remove the software, change your banking credentials from a different device, and tell the bank exactly which program it was.

    Afterwards

    Check your credit file for accounts you did not open. If your details are circulating, Cifas offers a protective registration that makes lenders take extra steps before granting credit in your name. And expect a follow-up attempt: people who have lost money once get contacted again by someone offering to recover it for a fee. That is the same fraud with a different script.

  • Reporting a Scam in Indonesia: IASC, Patroli Siber and CekRekening

    Indonesia has four reporting routes for online fraud, and they are genuinely different services rather than four doors into one office. Which one to use depends on whether money moved, whether you want a police case, and whether the thing you want stopped is a bank account or a web page.

    If money moved: IASC

    The Indonesia Anti-Scam Centre at iasc.ojk.go.id is the route for scams in the financial sector where you have lost money. It sits with the financial services authority, which is what makes it useful: it can reach the banks and payment providers holding the account your money went into, and accounts tied to a reported fraud can be blocked.

    Speed is the whole point. Report on the day it happens if you can. Have the transfer details ready — the destination account number and bank, the amount, the date and time, and the reference from your own transfer receipt — plus screenshots of the conversation that led to the payment.

    If you want a police case: Patroli Siber

    Patroli Siber at patrolisiber.id is the police route, run by the criminal investigation agency. Use it for the crime itself rather than the money: fraud, account takeover, blackmail, the sale of things that never arrive.

    One warning that belongs at the top rather than the bottom. Report through the site itself. There are social media accounts and WhatsApp numbers using the cyber crime unit’s logo and offering to “process” your report faster; they are part of the fraud, and a second scam aimed at people who have already lost money is one of the most common patterns there is. The police do not take online fraud reports through WhatsApp.

    Before you pay anyone: CekRekening

    cekrekening.id does two things, and the first one is the one more people should use. Periksa Rekening checks whether a bank account or e-wallet has already been reported for fraud. It takes fifteen seconds, and it is worth doing before any transfer to someone you have not met, whether that is a marketplace seller, a rental deposit or an investment.

    The second is Laporkan Rekening: reporting an account you believe was used for fraud, with the transfer evidence attached. That is what makes the first half work for the next person who checks the same number.

    For the link, the profile or the content: AduanKonten

    aduankonten.id handles illegal content — the fraudulent page, the fake shop, the impersonating profile. You have to register before you can file, and a report is processed when it carries three things: the address of the content, a screenshot, and your reason for reporting it.

    Keep the ticket code you are given. It is the only way to follow what happened to the report.

    What to have ready, once, for all four

    Every one of these asks for the same core evidence, so gather it once. Screenshots of the whole conversation, including the profile name and number. The destination account or e-wallet number. Your transfer receipt. The address of any web page involved, copied rather than retyped. The date and time of each step.

    Take the screenshots before you block anyone. Blocking first feels right and destroys the evidence you are about to be asked for.

    What these routes do not cover

    None of them takes a scam page offline. A page that is still loading is being served by a hosting provider under a domain name sold by a registrar, and those two are the ones who can remove it. An abuse report to the host, with the exact address and one line about what the page does, is usually the fastest takedown there is — and it is entirely separate from any government complaint.

    And none of them will call you back with a verdict. A ticket code and a status is what you get. That is worth having anyway: a bank asking why you are disputing a transfer wants a reference number, not a story.

    If you gave them something

    Change the password on the real service immediately, and anywhere you reused it. If you passed on an OTP, treat the account as already open to somebody else and go through the provider’s recovery process rather than just changing the password. If you installed an APK sent to you in a chat, the phone itself is the problem now: uninstall it, check for apps with accessibility or SMS permissions you did not grant, and change your mobile banking credentials from a different device.