The FBI is warning that scammers are spoofing the website of the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, to trick consumers into turning over financial information.
A spoofed website is designed to impersonate a legitimate website and may be used for illegal conduct, such as personal information theft and facilitating monetary scams, according to the FBI. The IC3 is the central hub for reporting cyber-related crimes and elder fraud to the agency. The IC3 does not work with any non-law enforcement entity, such as law firms or cryptocurrency services, to recover lost funds or investigate cases.
In an alert, the FBI recommended that consumers type the IC3’s web address – www.ic3.gov – directly into their browser address bar to ensure they are going to the correct address. The agency also recommended against clicking on “sponsored” results in web searches for the IC3 as those may be spoofed sites, and instead to check that the address ends in “.gov” and matches the IC3 address.
Potential victims should report any interactions with websites or individuals impersonating IC3 to their local FBI field office or the IC3 through its official web address, the agency said.
