Can You Press Charges on Someone for Scamming You?

You cannot personally press charges on someone for scamming you. Only a prosecutor has the authority to file criminal charges, and that decision comes after law enforcement investigates a report. What you can do is report the fraud quickly, hand over your evidence, and pursue money-recovery paths that don’t depend on a prosecutor’s decision at all.¹

That distinction frustrates a lot of victims. You might have airtight proof, and a prosecutor may still decline the case because they can’t locate the scammer, lack resources, or don’t think they can prove it to a jury. A declined case is not a wasted report. It creates a record that can strengthen later cases against the same offender, and it keeps your other options open.

How to Report the Scam

Before you contact anyone, pull your evidence together. Investigators take documented reports more seriously than vague ones. Collect:

Identifying details about the scammer: names, aliases, email addresses, phone numbers, website links, and social media profiles.
All communications: emails, texts, chat logs, voicemails, and any recordings.
Financial records: bank statements, wire transfer receipts, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, credit card statements, and gift card numbers.
A written timeline of events with dates and times, from first contact to the last transaction.

Then file with more than one agency. No single office handles every type of scam, and each report serves a different purpose.

Local police. Start here. You’ll get a case number, which banks and credit bureaus often require before processing fraud claims.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, if any part of the scam happened online. IC3 is the FBI’s central intake for cyber-enabled fraud and routes complaints to the right federal, state, or local agency.²
The Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC shares reports with more than 2,000 law enforcement partners.³
Your state attorney general or state consumer protection office, findable through usa.gov.⁴

What Happens After You Report

Filing a report doesn’t guarantee an investigation, and an investigation doesn’t guarantee charges. A prosecutor weighs the evidence, the size of the loss, how many victims are involved, and whether the scammer can realistically be brought to court. International scammers are the hardest category. The FBI operates in about 20 countries to pursue cyber criminals abroad, but cross-border cases move slowly and depend on foreign cooperation.⁵

The FTC is upfront that it does not resolve individual complaints. It uses reports to identify patterns, build enforcement cases against repeat offenders, and share data with other agencies.⁶ Don’t wait for a call back on your specific case.

Recovery through IC3 is more encouraging when speed is on your side. In 2024, IC3’s Financial Fraud Kill Chain helped freeze over $561 million across domestic and international incidents, with an overall success rate of 66 percent for the cases the team handled.⁷ The Recovery Asset Team intervenes only when a victim wired money to a domestic bank account and reports quickly. If a wire is involved, file with IC3 the same day.

Call Your Bank Today

Your bank is often the fastest way to get money back, and the deadlines for doing so are short and unforgiving.

For unauthorized debit card transactions or electronic transfers, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act caps your loss at $50 if you report within two business days of discovering the fraud. Wait longer than two days but report within 60 days of your statement, and your exposure rises to $500. Past 60 days, you can face unlimited liability for transfers that occurred after that window closed.⁸

Credit card fraud is governed by the Fair Credit Billing Act. You have 60 days from the date the statement containing the unauthorized charge was sent to notify your card issuer in writing. The issuer must acknowledge your dispute within 30 days and resolve it within two billing cycles, and cannot try to collect the disputed amount or report it as delinquent while investigating.⁹

For check fraud, the Uniform Commercial Code requires you to review your bank statements with reasonable promptness. If you fail to catch and report a forged or altered check, you lose the right to dispute any subsequent forgeries by the same person after 30 days. The absolute cutoff is one year from when the statement was made available.¹⁰

These deadlines don’t pause while you wait to hear from police or IC3. Call your bank first, then handle the criminal reporting.

Filing Your Own Civil Lawsuit

You cannot start a criminal case, but you can file a civil one. This is the one legal process you directly control: you hire the attorney, you decide whether to settle, you set the pace.

The burden of proof is also lower. A criminal conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A civil judgment only requires a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not that the scammer defrauded you. Cases prosecutors decline as too weak for criminal court are often perfectly viable in civil court.

For smaller losses, small claims court is the most accessible route. Filing fees are lower, procedures are informal, and you typically don’t need an attorney. Dollar limits vary by state, running from $2,500 to $25,000. For larger losses, you’ll file in a general jurisdiction court, where costs are higher and the rules are more complex.

The real obstacle in a civil fraud case is not proving the fraud. It’s collecting. A judgment is worthless if the scammer has hidden assets, spent the money, or lives in a country where U.S. court orders carry no weight. Before spending on a lawsuit, assess honestly whether the scammer has anything you could actually reach.

Getting Restitution Through a Criminal Case

If a scammer is convicted of a federal fraud offense, restitution is not optional. Federal law requires the court to order the defendant to repay victims for property crimes committed through fraud or deceit, and you don’t need a separate civil suit to receive it.¹¹

After a conviction or guilty plea, a probation officer contacts identified victims and provides a Victim Loss Statement to document financial harm. You may also submit a Victim Impact Statement. The judge then orders the defendant to pay an amount equal to each victim’s actual losses, generally the value of money or property obtained through the fraud. The U.S. Attorney’s Office enforces the order and can file liens against the defendant’s property when the order exceeds $500. Lost income and necessary expenses tied to participating in the prosecution are covered; attorney fees and tax penalties generally are not.¹² Courts can make exceptions when the number of victims or the complexity of the losses would unreasonably delay sentencing.¹¹

Restitution only reaches you if the case is prosecuted and won. That’s why the civil track and bank claims matter alongside reporting: they don’t depend on a conviction that may never come.

Deadlines That Can End Your Options

Every path here has a clock, and none of them stops while you decide what to do.

The general federal statute of limitations for fraud charges is five years from the date of the offense.¹³ If prosecutors don’t file within that window, no federal charges can be brought regardless of the evidence. Some specific fraud statutes carry longer periods, but five years is the default.

Civil fraud lawsuits face tighter, state-by-state deadlines, generally two to six years. Many states run the clock from when you discovered the fraud, or reasonably should have, rather than from when it happened. That discovery rule helps victims of sophisticated schemes, but it isn’t a reason to wait. The longer you take, the harder it gets to locate the scammer, preserve evidence, and persuade a court you acted promptly.

Bank deadlines are the shortest of all: two business days for maximum protection on electronic transfers, 60 days for credit card disputes. Those are the ones to act on today.

If the Scammer Got Your Personal Information

The scam may not end with the initial loss. If the scammer obtained your Social Security number, date of birth, or account credentials, identity theft can unfold for months afterward. The FTC recommends a specific sequence.¹⁴

Contact the fraud department at any company where an account was affected, ask them to close or freeze the account, and change all passwords and PINs.
Place a fraud alert by calling any one of the three credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax); that bureau must notify the other two. A standard alert lasts one year.
Pull free credit reports from all three bureaus at annualcreditreport.com and review them for accounts or inquiries you don’t recognize.
File an identity theft report at IdentityTheft.gov or by calling 1-877-438-4338. The site generates an Identity Theft Report and a personalized recovery plan.
Consider a credit freeze, which blocks new credit applications entirely until you lift it. You must contact each bureau separately.

For ongoing identity theft, an extended fraud alert lasts seven years. Getting one requires filing your identity theft report with a credit bureau, which then notifies the others.¹⁴

1
Department of Justice. Overview of the Privacy Act – 2020 Edition – Criminal
2
Internet Crime Complaint Center. Internet Crime Complaint Center
3
Federal Trade Commission. ReportFraud.ftc.gov
4
USAGov. State Consumer Protection Offices
5
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Cyber
6
Federal Trade Commission. FAQs – ReportFraud.ftc.gov
7
Internet Crime Complaint Center. 2024 IC3 Annual Report
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1693g – Consumer Liability
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors
10
Legal Information Institute. UCC 4-406 – Customers Duty to Discover and Report Unauthorized Signature or Alteration
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3663A – Mandatory Restitution to Victims of Certain Crimes
12
U.S. Department of Justice. The Restitution Process for Victims of Federal Crimes
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3282 – Offenses Not Capital
14
Federal Trade Commission. Identity Theft – A Recovery Plan