Welcome to the third post in this series on preventing and reporting scams. In the first post we talked about how to prevent yourself from falling prey to a scam and in the preceding post we talked about the different types of scams out there.
In today’s post, we are going to dive into how to report a scam and who to report it to should you become a victim. Some ways work better than others so it’s all according to what type of scam it is.
Notify Your Local Police
Depending on the severity of the crime, notifying your local police of the scam might be a good first step. For example, there was recently a scam in my area where phony vacuum salesmen went around in a white van and robbed unsuspecting victims upon gaining access to their homes.
Another example was where the scammers would call and claim to be representing a local bank. They would then ask questions about the victim’s account and attempt to confirm account details. This was obviously a scam because a bank would never call you to confirm your information.
These are the types of scams you should report to the authorities. By informing the local authorities they can get the info out before anyone else gets hit by this scam.
Scams over the Internet such as an email from your local bank needing you to confirm your account information should be reported. The point I am making is that if the scam is on a local basis you will have the best luck here.
Notify The Federal Bureau of Investigation
On a local scale you might inform the local police but on a more national or international level you may want to look at informing the FBI. The FBI has an entire division dedicated to fraud schemes.
On their website you will find all kinds of information on different types of scams going on from telemarketing scams, Internet scams, health insurance fraud, to Nigerian letter or 419 fraud.
You can also sign up for their fraud alert here, and get up-to-date information about scams, fraud, or any other schemes. You can also report a scam or fraud there as well. If it’s an Internet crime you can report that here, and if it is a crime tip you can report that here.
If you’ve been involved in an investment scam of one sort or another within the U.S., such the scandal involving Bernard Madoff, these organizations are the ones you should be notifying.
The Securities and Exchange Commission ,better known as the SEC, is a government-run organization in charge of overseeing the securities industry.
If you have any tips, questions, want to report investment scams or report a complaint you can do that at the link above. However, FINRA on the other hand is a self-regulatory organization that is put in place to internally manage broker/dealers.
You can find a wealth of information at the FINRA website. There you will find everything you need to know before you invest, after you invest, and of course avoiding investment fraud.
You can also do a broker check and learn about the company before you invest with them since every broker and brokerage firm located in the U.S. must be compliant with FINRA guidelines.
The great thing about the broker check is that you will also see if the company is experiencing any disciplinary actions or has suspensions. This will let you know what kind of company this really is.
Notify The Better Business Bureau
Have you ever felt that a business was scamming you in some form? The idea behind this organization is to improve the quality of dealing with businesses and weeding out the scammers.
The Better Business Bureau is a great way to check out a business or charity to see if they have any complaints against them. Even if they aren’t an accredited member of the BBB you can still report a complaint.
They have a wealth of info at their website but if you would like to report a complaint you can do that here as well.
Notify Stumble Forward
No, my blog is not a place to report scams and it certainly is not the first place you should go. The four I mentioned above should be first. The reason you should notify me here at Stumble Forward is because in some cases there isn’t any information on a certain scam.
As with the Milton Hayward Scam, Laura, a reader here at Stumble Forward could not find any info on this scam. This is when I offered to post her story here hopefully to draw in a few people who could shed some light on this scam.
You too can share your story or scam you’ve been involved in by going to my Guest Post Page where you can get all the info you need to submit your story here.
Chris
This post was recently featured in the carnival of personal finance by Fire Finance.
I have been a victim of several scams, such as online rebates (CyberRebates), eBay, and Craigslist. Recently I reported a Craigslist scam to PayPal. PayPal did an investigation on their side and eventually agreed with me, however they could not retrieve my money, despite that one of the earlier representatives told me that they could reverse the transactions. I wasn’t too happy about it but it’s such a small scam that I did not report it to the local police, FBI, or BBB. Surprisingly, I am reporting it here on Stumble Forward.
Smarty,
In that situation Paypal was your best choice since they were incharge of the funds. At least now a higher athourity knows about the scam and can warn people about it before it happens again.
You may also want to inform Craiglist of the scam as well. I don’t know what it will do as to help you but it’s worth a shot.
Chris
Did you notice you only list four ways to report a scam? whats the 5th way?