The FBI has issued a warning : scammers are impersonating the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IC3) website to commit financial fraud or steal visitors’ personal information.
“Attackers create fake websites, often by slightly altering the domains of legitimate resources, to collect personal information users enter on the site (including their name, home address, phone number, email address, and banking information),” the FBI reports. “For example, fake website domains may contain alternate spellings of words or use a different top-level domain to impersonate a legitimate resource.”
Bleeping Computer reporters found several sites such as icc3[.]live, practicelawyer[.]net, and ic3a[.]com. The former site even displays the same scam warning as the real Internet Fraud Complaint Center website , warning that scammers impersonate IC3 employees, offering victims “help” in recovering their stolen funds.
The warning was issued in April 2025, after the FBI received more than 100 reports of scammers using this tactic.
To protect yourself from such attacks , the FBI recommends always typing www.ic3.gov in your browser’s address bar rather than using search engines. Law enforcement also advises against clicking on search ads, as they are often paid for by scammers attempting to redirect traffic from legitimate websites to their phishing sites.
The FBI also reminded people to never share sensitive information with people they recently met online or over the phone, and to never send them money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other financial assets.
Please note that IC3 employees never contact fraud victims directly via phone, email, social media, mobile apps, or public forums . Furthermore, they will never request payment for the return of stolen funds or direct victims to companies that charge refund fees.
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