Reporting online and telemarketing scams in US and Canada

If you fall victim to fraud over the Internet or by telephone, in addition to reporting such crimes to your local law enforcement, here’s what you can do to help catch the criminals or at least help alert the government to them. What if you didn’t fall victim? You can still report the criminal contact.

United States

• U.S. victims of Internet fraud schemes should file complaints online with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (a joint project of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center) at http://www.ic3.gov.
• U.S. victims of telemarketing fraud should contact the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Sentinel, either by calling the FTC's toll-free number, 1-877-987-3728, or by filing an online form available through its website, http://www.ftc.gov. The FTC does NOT investigate these crimes.

Canada

• Victims of Canadian-based telemarketing schemes may contact PhoneBusters at 1-888-495-8501 or http://www.phonebusters.com.
• Victims of Canadian-based Internet or financial fraud can report them to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Reporting Economic Crime Online (RECOL) service at https://www.recol.ca/intro.aspx.