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The FBI’s official Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) address is www.ic3.gov. Type it directly into your browser rather than opening a search result. The FBI warned on September 19, 2025, that criminals were imitating IC3 websites to steal personal information and support financial scams.
How to tell whether an FBI or IC3 website is real
Check the address bar, not just the page’s logo or appearance. The FBI says to enter www.ic3.gov directly. A lookalike can change a letter, add words, or use a different ending. A domain such as gov.org is not the same as an address ending in .gov.
If you reach IC3 through a search engine, avoid sponsored results and verify that the address is exactly www.ic3.gov before entering anything. The FBI’s official warning explains that spoofed pages may appear in search results and can be made to resemble the real service.
- Type www.ic3.gov into the browser address bar.
- Check the spelling and confirm the address ends in .gov.
- Be wary of suspicious graphics, unusual wording, misspellings, or a low-quality imitation.
- Do not provide personal or financial details if you cannot independently verify the site.
What spoofed FBI-related domains are trying to do
A fake complaint page can collect information from people who believe they are contacting the FBI. The FBI warns that spoofed sites and related phishing campaigns may seek names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, banking information, login credentials, and multifactor-authentication tokens. A convincing design does not establish that a site is genuine.
Search placement is not proof of legitimacy either: criminals may pay to put an imitation near the top of results. Use the verified address rather than relying on ranking or branding.
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Does IC3 charge to recover lost money?
No. IC3 does not charge a fee to recover lost funds, refer victims to a paid recovery company, or maintain a social-media presence. The FBI’s warning states: “IC3 will never ask for payment to recover lost funds, nor will IC3 refer someone to a company requesting payment for recovering funds.” Treat anyone claiming to be an IC3 employee or recovery specialist who promises recovered funds and then requests money or financial information as suspicious. The FBI received more than 100 reports of this related impersonation pattern between December 2023 and February 2025, according to its advisory.
Government impersonation is not limited to fake IC3 pages. The FBI reported that government-impersonation fraud schemes generated more than $405 million in losses across more than 17,000 complaints in 2024. These figures cover government-impersonation schemes, not only spoofed IC3 websites. See the FBI’s related alert.
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- Stop interacting with it. Do not send more information or money, and do not follow further links or instructions from the site or its operators.
- Contact affected financial providers promptly. If you entered banking details or a payment was involved, contact your bank or other provider through its verified website or phone number.
- Preserve evidence. Save the impersonator’s name or company, website address, email, phone number, payment details or cryptocurrency address, how the contact began, what was requested, and what information or money you provided.
- Report through a verified channel. Use the genuine IC3 site at ic3.gov, entered directly in your browser, or contact a local FBI field office.
How organizations can reduce domain-spoofing risk
For companies that operate branded portals, the FBI recommends services that monitor for similar domain registrations and notify the organization, along with user education on checking destination URLs. The FBI’s guidance for organizations supports those measures but does not compare vendors or publish product performance data.
When assessing a domain-monitoring service, organizations can compare the domains and geographic areas it covers, how quickly it sends alerts, whether it supports takedown or escalation, available registrar and DNS integrations, and total cost. Those are evaluation criteria, not claims that any particular provider offers a specific capability.
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