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What is the FBI IC3? How to file an internet crime complaint
IC3 is the Internet Crime Complaint Center, run by the FBI as the central place to report cyber-enabled crime. Filing is free, takes about thirty minutes, and puts your information in front of trained analysts who pass it to law enforcement where appropriate. It does not guarantee an investigation, a response, or recovery, and IC3 states plainly that you will not hear back from them.
Who this is for
Anyone who has lost money or access to a scam, hack or fraud that involved the internet, and is trying to work out whether reporting to the FBI applies to them and what it will achieve.
You do not need to be American, and you do not need to be certain a crime occurred.
What IC3 is
IC3 stands for Internet Crime Complaint Center. It is run by the FBI and describes itself as the central hub for reporting cyber-enabled crime.
IC3 defines cyber-enabled crime broadly: any illegal activity assisted by cyber-related means, which includes advance-fee schemes, non-delivery of goods or services, computer hacking, employment scams, ransomware and data breaches. It notes that almost all telephone calls now use internet technology, so a phone-based scam can qualify.
When you file, trained analysts review and research the complaint and pass information to law enforcement and partner agencies where appropriate. Complaints may be referred to federal, state, local or international agencies for possible investigation.
The official address is www.ic3.gov. Type it into your browser. Do not reach it through a search advertisement, a link in a message, or a social media post, because IC3 impersonation is common enough that IC3 carries a warning about it on its own home page.
What IC3 is, and what it is not
| IC3 does | IC3 does not |
|---|---|
| Receive complaints about cyber-enabled crime | Conduct investigations itself |
| Have analysts review and research them | Provide case status updates |
| Refer information to law enforcement and partners | Guarantee anyone will investigate |
| Build a national picture of fraud patterns | Operate a phone line or email for complaints |
| Accept reports even when no money was lost | Accept attachments or collect evidence |
| Accept reports from outside the United States | Tell you whether a company has complaints against it |
That second column is not a criticism. It is what IC3 says about itself, and knowing it in advance prevents the most common disappointment: waiting for a reply that was never going to come.
Is there IC3 customer service?
No, and this is the question people most need answered.
IC3's own FAQ is direct about it. After you file, the information is reviewed by an analyst and forwarded to law enforcement and partner agencies as appropriate. IC3 states that you will not hear from them, that it does not conduct investigations, and that it therefore cannot provide the investigative status of a complaint. Investigation and prosecution are at the discretion of the receiving agencies.
You acknowledge this when you file. The terms you accept before submitting include the sentence that you will not be contacted by IC3.
There is no phone number for complaint enquiries. There is no email address for updates. There is no portal where you can check a status. Any website, phone number, social media account or person offering those things is not IC3.
One exception runs the other way. The confirmation message notes that you will be contacted if additional information is needed. That contact, if it ever comes, comes from an investigating agency rather than IC3 itself, and it is not a status update.
The one screen you must not close
This matters more than anything else in this article, and almost nobody knows it before they file.
After submitting, IC3 shows a confirmation at the top of your filed complaint. That message asks you to save or print a copy before closing the window or navigating away, because it is the only time you will be able to retain a copy. IC3 does not email you a copy and will not send an electronic version of the file.
Close that tab without saving and your complaint is gone from your side permanently. There is no retrieval.
Save it as a PDF and print it. Use your browser's print function and choose "Save as PDF", then also print a paper copy if you can. Your bank, your insurer, a lawyer or a local police force may all want to see it, and you will not be able to produce another one.
Do this first, before you file
Reporting matters, and it is not the most urgent thing if money or access is still at risk.
- [ ] Stop communicating with the person. You owe them nothing, including an explanation.
- [ ] Do not send another payment of any kind. Not a tax, not a verification fee, not a release fee, not a recovery fee. Each of these is a known continuation of the fraud.
- [ ] Do not share your seed phrase, private key, password, one-time code, recovery code, or remote access to your device. No legitimate organisation needs any of these, ever.
- [ ] Contact your bank, card issuer, payment provider or exchange now if funds may still be moving or an account may still be reachable. They can sometimes act when contacted quickly, and nobody else can act for you.
- [ ] Secure your email first, then other accounts, from a device you trust. Email controls password resets for everything else.
- [ ] Preserve evidence before deleting anything. Do not delete the chats, close the accounts or clear your history, however much you want to.
- [ ] Call your local police if there is immediate danger, threats or coercion. IC3's guidance on this is unambiguous: if you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911 or your local police.
If your matter is time-sensitive, IC3 directs you to contact local law enforcement directly, because investigation and prosecution sit with the receiving agencies rather than with IC3.
What the complaint form asks for
IC3 lists the categories it collects. The FBI's ability to address your complaint depends on the accuracy and completeness of what you provide.
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Complainant's information | The person affected by the crime: name, address, telephone, email. If you are filing for someone else, you provide your own contact details separately. |
| Financial loss and transaction information | Account information, transaction date and amount, who received the money, and the total loss. |
| Subject information | The person who committed the crime: name, address, telephone, email, website and IP address, to whatever extent you know them. |
| Details | Specific details of what happened. This is the narrative. |
| Email headers | Provided if available or applicable. |
You can file on behalf of another person you believe has been affected. That matters for families reporting on behalf of an older relative, and for anyone helping someone who cannot face the form themselves.
You can file even if you did not lose money. For cryptocurrency scams the FBI explicitly encourages reporting even where no financial loss occurred, because the identifiers still build the picture.
Writing the narrative
The details section carries most of the value. A clear chronology is worth more than an emotional account, not because your feelings do not matter but because an analyst needs facts they can act on.
Cover, in order:
- How contact started. Which platform, what date, who approached whom.
- Who they claimed to be. Names, titles, companies, the account handles they used.
- What they told you. The promise, the opportunity, the threat, the problem they said you had.
- What you did. Each payment, each transfer, each piece of access granted, with dates.
- How the money moved. Payment method, amounts, the institutions or platforms at each end.
- Every identifier you have. Websites, domains, email addresses, phone numbers, messaging handles, payment tags, profile links, wallet addresses, transaction hashes.
- What you have already done. Banks contacted, accounts frozen, reports filed elsewhere, reference numbers obtained.
- Whether it is still happening. Threats, continued contact, or anyone who has since offered to recover your funds.
Keep it factual.
- Give dates and specific amounts rather than "a few weeks ago" and "around five thousand".
- Separate what you know from what you suspect. Write "I believe" where you are inferring.
- Write "unknown" rather than guessing. A guess that turns out wrong is worse than a gap.
- Do not exaggerate. The real figure is persuasive on its own.
- Never type a seed phrase, private key, password or authentication code into the form. No field asks for them and no investigator needs them.
Cryptocurrency: what to include
IC3's cryptocurrency guidance is specific about what helps most. Transaction details are among the most important information you can provide.
Include for each transaction:
- [ ] Cryptocurrency addresses, sending and receiving
- [ ] The amount and the type of cryptocurrency
- [ ] The transaction hash, also called the transaction ID
- [ ] The date and time of the transaction
And everything you know about the approach:
- [ ] How you met the scammer
- [ ] Which platforms you used to communicate
- [ ] Any web domain involved
- [ ] Phone numbers and other identifiers
IC3 also explains the distinction people most often get wrong. A transaction hash is a fixed-length string derived from the transaction data; on Bitcoin and Ethereum it is 64 hexadecimal characters. A wallet address varies by blockchain: Bitcoin addresses typically run 26 to 63 characters, Ethereum addresses are always 42 including the 0x prefix.
If you only have one of them, file anyway and say which it is.
A wallet address does not identify a person. Blockchain analysis can follow funds, and the FBI notes that law enforcement can trace cryptocurrency in ways not possible with other financial systems. It also notes the real limit: when funds move to exchanges overseas, US law enforcement may face significant challenges in jurisdictions with weak anti-money-laundering rules.
Our evidence checklist covers gathering this before you sit down to file.
Evidence: keep it, do not send it
IC3 does not accept attachments and does not collect evidence. You can paste information into the complaint, email headers for example, but you must keep all original documents somewhere secure. If an agency opens an investigation, they may request the material directly from you.
This is the step people skip, and then the accounts disappear.
Preserve, in original form:
- Emails with full headers, electronic copies preferred over printed
- Chat transcripts and messaging app records
- Screenshots of profiles, posts, websites and adverts
- Bank, card, wire and exchange records
- Cryptocurrency receipts and transaction records
- Receipts of every kind, including money order and prepaid card
- Phone bills showing the relevant calls
- For a business: network, host system and security appliance logs
- A dated chronology you write yourself
Never share, with anyone:
- Seed phrases or recovery phrases
- Private keys
- Passwords
- One-time codes or MFA codes
- Recovery codes
- Remote access to your device
Store what you keep somewhere you control, backed up, and separate from the compromised accounts.
Filing, step by step
1. Type www.ic3.gov into your browser. Not a search result, not a link.
2. Choose File a Complaint.
3. Read the terms and conditions, then accept. You are confirming your information is correct to the best of your knowledge, and acknowledging that you will not be contacted by IC3.
4. Enter the complainant's details, meaning the affected person. If that is not you, add your own contact details in the separate section.
5. Enter the financial and transaction information, carefully. Accuracy matters more than speed here.
6. Add everything you know about the subject. Partial information is still useful. "Unknown" is a legitimate answer.
7. Write the narrative, following the structure above.
8. Review it. Check the dates, check the amounts, and confirm you have not typed anything secret into a free-text box.
9. Submit.
10. Save and print the confirmation immediately, before you navigate away. This is the only copy you will get.
Allow thirty minutes and have your records open before you start. The form does not save a draft.
What happens next
Trained analysts review and research complaints and disseminate information to law enforcement and partner agencies as appropriate. Whether anyone investigates is their decision, not IC3's.
You will not receive updates. IC3 cannot provide them. It also does not release information about specific complaints or their resolution, including to the person who filed.
You cannot cancel a complaint. Once filed, it cannot be cancelled.
If you learn something new, file a fresh complaint saying that you are filing again because you have additional information to add to a previous one. There is no edit function.
Realistic expectations. IC3 receives an enormous volume of complaints and says it cannot respond directly to every submission. Filing is worth doing, and it is not a request that generates a reply. Think of it as adding your information to a picture rather than opening a case.
Does filing help recover money?
Sometimes, indirectly, and never reliably.
What filing can do: it puts transaction identifiers in front of analysts who see the same addresses across many complaints, which is how networks get identified. It creates a dated official record, which banks, insurers and lawyers may ask for. Where reporting is fast and the transaction information is complete, it may support an official response.
What it cannot do: guarantee an investigation, a freeze, a prosecution, a reply, or the return of anything.
If money is still moving, IC3 is not the urgent step. Your bank, payment provider or exchange is, and they need to hear from you today. Our guide on what can realistically be recovered sets out the factors honestly.
Fake IC3 and FBI contacts
IC3 carries a warning about impersonation on its own home page, and the reason is that reporting a fraud marks you as someone who has already lost money.
The FBI's cryptocurrency guidance says it plainly: be wary of cryptocurrency recovery services, especially those charging an up-front fee. That is the FBI, on its own site, making the same point this entire site exists to make.
Treat as fraudulent:
- Anyone contacting you claiming to be IC3 or the FBI about a complaint you filed, since IC3 has told you it will not contact you
- Any fee to unlock, release, verify or recover funds
- Any IC3 or FBI "support" account on social media or a messaging app
- Any request for a seed phrase, private key, password, code or remote access
- Any link in an unsolicited message claiming to be a status update
- Any website that looks like IC3 but was reached through an advertisement
To verify anything: close the conversation, type the official domain yourself, and use contact details you found rather than ones you were given. Impersonators copy real details convincingly, including badge numbers and case references.
Our guide on spotting a recovery scam covers the five questions to ask anyone offering help.
If you are 60 or over, or helping someone who is
The National Elder Fraud Hotline on 833-372-8311 can help with filing an IC3 complaint. It is an official service run through the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime, and it exists because the form is long and the circumstances are hard.
There is no shame in using it. Older adults report the largest share of losses in this category, and the reason is that they are targeted deliberately and persistently.
What Chain Pursuit can and cannot do
We can help you understand what happened, organise a chronology, work out which identifiers you have and which you are missing, and recognise a recovery scam before you pay one.
We cannot file on your behalf, guarantee recovery or a freeze, act as IC3, the FBI, police, a bank or a court, or identify a person from a wallet address. We will never ask for your seed phrase, private key, password or authentication codes.
We are independent and not affiliated with the FBI or IC3. This article is based on IC3's published guidance, linked below. IC3 changes its processes from time to time; the official site is authoritative and this page is not.
What this guide cannot do
Filing is a worthwhile step with uncertain outcomes. It does not make recovery likely, and for most victims of cryptocurrency fraud the funds are not returned. We would rather say so than let you build expectations the process will not meet.
This is general information, not legal advice, and reporting obligations differ by country.
Use Chain Pursuit's free tools to understand your options, preserve evidence, and identify possible recovery scams. Do not share your seed phrase or private keys with anyone.
Sources
Internet Crime Complaint Center, Frequently Asked Questions. https://www.ic3.gov/Home/FAQ Supports: definition of cyber-enabled crime, who may file, form contents, post-filing process, confirmation wording, cancellation policy, attachments policy, evidence list, urgent and time-sensitive guidance.
Internet Crime Complaint Center, Cryptocurrency. https://www.ic3.gov/CrimeInfo/Cryptocurrency Supports: cryptocurrency reporting details, wallet address versus transaction hash, recovery service warning, Elder Fraud Hotline.
Internet Crime Complaint Center, Home. https://www.ic3.gov/ Supports: IC3's role, FBI operation, impersonation warning, response volume.
FBI, PSA I-082423-PSA: FBI Guidance for Cryptocurrency Scam Victims, August 2023. https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2023/PSA230824
Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 IC3 Annual Report. https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2025_IC3Report.pdf
Office for Victims of Crime, National Elder Fraud Hotline. https://ovc.ojp.gov/program/elder-fraud-abuse/national-elder-fraud-hotline
IC3's processes and the complaint form change periodically. This page was verified against the official guidance above on 27 September 2026 and is reviewed quarterly. Where this page and ic3.gov differ, ic3.gov is correct.
Frequently asked questions
What does IC3 stand for?
Internet Crime Complaint Center. It is run by the FBI and is the central hub for reporting cyber-enabled crime in the United States.
Is filing an IC3 complaint free?
Yes. Filing is free at www.ic3.gov. Anyone charging you a fee to file, or offering to file on your behalf for payment, is not IC3.
Can people outside the United States file an IC3 complaint?
Yes. IC3 states that anyone who believes they are affected by a cyber-enabled crime may file, including citizens of another country, and including people reporting a subject in another country.
Can I file on behalf of someone else?
Yes. You may file for another person you believe has been affected. The form collects the affected person's details, and you provide your own contact information separately.
Is there an IC3 customer service phone number?
No. IC3 has no phone line, email address or portal for complaint enquiries, and it does not provide case status. Any number or account offering these is impersonating IC3.
Will IC3 contact me after I file?
No. IC3 states that you will not hear from them, and you acknowledge this in the terms you accept before submitting. If additional information is needed, contact would come from an investigating agency rather than from IC3.
Can I track the status of my IC3 complaint?
No. IC3 does not conduct investigations and cannot provide investigative status. It also does not release information about specific complaints or their resolution.
Does IC3 accept screenshots or attachments?
No. IC3 does not collect evidence and does not accept attachments. You can paste text such as email headers into the complaint, and you should keep all originals securely in case an investigating agency requests them.
What should I include in a crypto scam report?
Cryptocurrency addresses, the amounts and types involved, transaction hashes, and the dates and times of transactions. Add how you met the scammer, the platforms used, any web domains, and any phone numbers or other identifiers.
Can I file if I did not lose money?
Yes, and for cryptocurrency scams the FBI encourages it. The identifiers you provide still contribute to the picture even where no loss occurred.
Will filing an IC3 report get my money back?
There is no guarantee of recovery, investigation or response. Filing may help analysts connect your case to others and creates an official record. If funds are still moving, contacting your bank, payment provider or exchange is the more urgent step.
What if I find new information after filing?
File a new complaint, stating that you are filing again because you have additional information relating to a previous complaint. Complaints cannot be edited after submission.
Can I cancel a complaint?
No. Once filed, a complaint cannot be cancelled. If something was wrong or has changed, file a new one explaining the correction.
Someone contacted me saying they are from IC3 about my complaint. Is it real?
Almost certainly not. IC3 states that you will not hear from them. Treat any such contact as impersonation, particularly if it asks for a fee, credentials, or remote access to your device.
Before you file
Eleven questions showing which documentation and reporting routes are available in your case.
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