Reporting international scams
October 13, 2015
by
Colleen Tressler
Consumer Education Specialist, FTC
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve heard us say repeatedly to report scams to the FTC. If you report scams to us, we can bring the kinds of cases that shut down the scammers.
But there’s another place to report international scams, too: econsumer.gov. Maybe you’ve done business with an overseas company that hasn’t lived up to its end of the deal. Perhaps you got “winning” lottery notices from another country, or got asked to send money overseas to secure your international job. If you’ve spotted a scam that crosses international borders, you can file a report at econsumer.gov.
The site is run by the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN), and is a partnership of 34 consumer protection agencies around the world. Starting today, an updated version of the site is available – it’s mobile-friendly, has a user-friendly complaint form, and you can get consumer information and file complaints in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish, and Turkish.
Whether you use a smart phone, tablet or other mobile device, your complaints to econsumer.gov help consumer protection agencies around the globe – including the FTC – spot trends, conduct investigations, bring cases and prevent international scams. You also can learn practical steps to help combat fraud and get news from ICPEN members, including case announcements.
