Where to Report

This is the one article in this pillar that names organisations, and it does so because an article about where to report that names nowhere would be useless. Every channel below was verified on 17 August 2026 and re-checked on 18 August 2026, and every one is United States. Agency names, remits and addresses change, and a stale reporting channel is worse than none because it costs a victim time they may not have. Reach each of these by typing the address directly rather than through a link in any message, which is the point made in Fraudulent Platforms about links supplied by the party being assessed. Other jurisdictions have entirely different bodies; a reader outside the United States should locate their own national equivalents.

The first is speed. Where money has moved, the window in which anything can be done about it is measured in hours rather than days.

The second is expectation. Reporting rarely produces an individual investigation of one person's case, and anyone who is told otherwise has been misled. What it does is enter the matter into the databases law enforcement uses to identify and pursue the operations behind it, and create the documented record needed for a bank, an insurer or a lawyer to act. Both of those are worth having, and neither is the same as someone taking up your case.

Start here

Keep the reference number the Federal Trade Commission issues. It is reused with banks, with credit bureaus and with anyone else who asks what has been done.

Where the subject is securities

The Securities and Exchange Commission takes tips, complaints and referrals at sec.gov/TCR.

Its published list of what belongs there covers the substance of this pillar: fraudulent or unregistered offers or sales of securities; theft or misappropriation of funds or securities; manipulation of a security's price or volume; insider trading; false or misleading statements about a company, including in its filings; failure to file required reports; and fraud connected with municipal securities or public pension plans.

The Commission's own guidance to someone who suspects they are in a scam is to stop communicating with the people involved and to give them no more money.

Complaints about the conduct of a brokerage firm or a registered representative go to FINRA, the self-regulatory organisation described in Who Regulates What, through the investor complaint centre reachable from finra.org/investors/have-problem. Investors aged 60 and over, or anyone with a question about a brokerage account, can also call FINRA's Securities Helpline for Seniors on 844-574-3577 (Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern; verified 18 August 2026). Each state also has its own securities regulator, located through the North American Securities Administrators Association at nasaa.org. Matters involving futures, commodities or derivatives, including many digital-asset arrangements, go to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, whose complaint route is reachable from cftc.gov.

Other channels worth knowing

The FBI maintains 56 field offices, listed at fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices, and a general line on 1-800-225-5324.

State attorneys general have enforcement powers the federal consumer agency does not, including the ability to act against local businesses, and many operate dedicated fraud units. They are located through naag.org.

Free credit reports are obtained at annualcreditreport.com, which is where the checking described in Identity Theft and Financial Impersonation begins.

For exploitation of an older adult, the Department of Justice's National Elder Fraud Hotline is 833-372-8311 (Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern; case managers assist with reporting and referrals; verified 18 August 2026), and the Office for Victims of Crime publishes the current routes for elder fraud specifically. The National Center on Elder Abuse is the national resource, local adult protective services and local police are also routes, and where an immediate risk exists the emergency services are the right call rather than any of the above.

The offer that will arrive next, and the one thing to do about it. People who have reported a loss are frequently approached afterwards by someone offering to recover the money for a fee. Victim details circulate, so the approach often comes from people who can describe what happened accurately. It is the same structure as the original loss, described in How Investment Fraud Works: a payment demanded before a receipt that will not arrive. Recovery, where it is possible at all, runs through the channels on this page and through the banks and payment providers involved. It does not begin with a stranger asking for an advance fee, and no legitimate agency charges a victim to take a report.

The last thing worth saying, and it belongs at the end of this pillar rather than anywhere else. The most common reason a loss goes unreported is embarrassment. Reports come from every age group, every income level and every profession, because these operations are industrialised and tested against very large numbers of people until the version that works is found. Being caught by one of them is evidence that a professional operation was aimed at you, not evidence about your judgement — which is the same point Financial Exploitation of Older Adults makes about the fear of being thought incapable. Concealment is what allows a loss to continue and what removes the possibility of recovery, and reporting is the single most useful thing available to someone who has lost money.