The sites that track and expose scams

Plenty of sites claim to catalogue scams, and some of them live off advertising or resell data. What follows is organised by what you actually want to do, with what each resource does — and what it does not.

Checking before you pay

• Reverse image search. The fastest and most effective tool against a fake profile. Google Images, TinEye and Bing visual search all accept an uploaded photo. A profile picture that belongs to a model, a serving soldier or a foreign Instagram account surfaces within seconds. Try more than one engine: they index different sources.
• Website trust scores, of which ScamAdviser is the best known, rate a site automatically from domain age, hosting country and reviews. Useful as a first filter, but it is a computed score: a good rating is not a guarantee, and a young domain is not necessarily fraudulent.
• Financial regulators' warning lists. Every country publishes a list of entities offering investments without authorisation. This is the decisive check before any "investment" suggested by someone you met online, and it is free. Your country's list is on its country page; the IOSCO Investor Alerts Portal gathers the warnings of regulators worldwide.
• Public account and number lookup tools exist in several Asian jurisdictions, letting you check a bank account or phone number against fraud reports before paying. See your country page.

Reporting officially

• Your national reporting channel is always the starting point: it feeds investigations and, in some countries, can freeze the funds. It differs by country — the page for your country says which one and how to use it.
• eConsumer.gov is the only genuinely international channel: run by the network of consumer protection authorities, it covers more than thirty-five countries and exists for reporting a scam committed from abroad. It will not recover your money, but it routes the report to the authority in the scammer's country.
• The European Consumer Centres network handles, free of charge, disputes with a trader established in another EU country, Norway or Iceland. Often the most effective route for a purchase, less so for romance fraud.
• The platform itself. An in-app report closes the account, which protects the people already being approached. It is the single most immediately useful thing you can do for someone else.

Looking up what others have reported

• Searchable report databases let you look up a name, number, email address or company. The Better Business Bureau's Scam Tracker covers North America; French-language reports are gathered on Signal-Arnaques and ScamDoc; Austria's publicly funded Watchlist publishes current campaigns in German; German consumer associations run a phishing radar.
• National cyber security centre alerts are the most reliable and least consulted source. Several publish a weekly bulletin describing campaigns in circulation, with screenshots. A glance before paying is often enough to recognise the script. Your country's centre is listed on its country page.
• The Global Anti-Scam Alliance brings together more than a hundred organisations — banks, platforms, authorities — and publishes annual research useful for understanding trends. It is not an individual reporting channel.

Getting an intimate image taken down

• StopNCII.org is the reference service for adults, and how it works matters: the image never leaves your device. Only a digital fingerprint is computed locally and shared with partner platforms, which then block any matching image. You send your photo to no one, and the service is free.
• For anyone under eighteen, an equivalent scheme is run by the US centre for missing and exploited children, on the same fingerprint principle and with international reach.
• Platform takedown forms treat non-consensual intimate images as a priority. Keep the exact URL of the post: it is what speeds the process up.

Finding support

• Sextortion-specific peer support services — Scam Survivors among them, long established and run by volunteers — help for free, explain what is about to happen and help lock down your accounts. Their message is consistent: the threatened release rarely happens where the victim does not pay and cuts contact.
• National victim support organisations are listed in the country pages. Many run a free helpline.
• General listening lines matter too: shame and isolation are part of the harm, and talking to someone the same day changes a great deal.

Further reading

• Google Images — reverse image search: upload the profile photo (camera icon)
• TinEye — independent reverse image search, different sources indexed
• Bing Visual Search — third engine worth trying: indexes differ
• ScamAdviser — automatic trust score for a website — a first filter, not a guarantee
• IOSCO Investor Alerts Portal — warnings from financial regulators worldwide in one place; the national list is on your country page
• eConsumer.gov — international reporting channel, thirty-five-plus countries
• European Consumer Centres Network — free help with a trader in another EU country
• BBB Scam Tracker — Better Business Bureau's searchable report database, North America
• Signal-Arnaques — French-language report database: search a number, a name, an email address
• ScamDoc — trust index for a website or email address, with user reports
• Watchlist Internet (Austria) — current campaigns described in German, publicly funded
• Phishing-Radar (Verbraucherzentrale) — German consumer associations' phishing radar
• Global Anti-Scam Alliance — annual research and international coordination
• StopNCII.org — for sextortion: block an intimate image from being reshared; the image never leaves your device
• Take It Down (NCMEC) — the equivalent scheme for anyone under eighteen, international reach
• Scam Survivors — free volunteer-run help, long established in sextortion cases

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