How to report cybercrime in the United Kingdom

Report Fraud launched on 4 December 2025 and replaced Action Fraud as the national platform for reporting fraud and cybercrime. It is run by the City of London Police, the national lead force for fraud. You can report online at reportfraud.police.uk or by phone on 0300 123 2040.

What it is for: fraud and cybercrime that has already happened — online shopping fraud, investment and romance fraud, hacked accounts, ransomware, sextortion by email. Reports feed the National Crime Analysis Service, which every police force can access, so linked cases across the country can be connected.

What it is not for: crimes in progress (call 999), incidents in Scotland (Police Scotland), or forwarding scam emails and texts, which have their own route described below.

Report Fraud is an intake service, not a response unit. Go to your local force instead when:

• the crime is happening now, someone is at risk, or a courier is about to collect cash or cards — call 999;
• you know the offender, or the fraud is linked to someone local — call 101;
• you live in Scotland — Police Scotland takes all fraud and cybercrime reports on 101.

If you received a suspicious message but did not lose money or data, you do not need a crime report. The National Cyber Security Centre runs a suspicious email reporting service: forward the email to report@phishing.gov.uk, and forward scam texts to 7726. The NCSC also accepts reports of scam websites through its online form. These reports are used to take down malicious sites and block senders, which is a different job from investigating a crime.

• The website address, exactly as shown, and how you found it (advert, search result, social media, message).
• Dates, times and amounts of every payment, and the payee name, sort code and account number for bank transfers.
• Card transaction references or PayPal and marketplace order IDs.
• Screenshots of the site, the checkout and any conversation.
• For emails: the full headers, which your mail program shows under "show original" or "view source".
• Your bank's own fraud reference number if you have already called them.

You receive a crime reference number. The City of London Police has said the new service will send updates when your information supports an investigation, which is an improvement on Action Fraud, where most people heard nothing after the reference. Even so, most individual reports are used as intelligence rather than investigated on their own, and there is no status page you can follow day by day.

A report is a record and an investigation route. It very rarely takes a website offline, and it does not recover money. Keep the reference number: banks and insurers often ask for it.

The police report does not reach the company hosting the scam site. Report it there as well:

• Look up the host and registrar with the abuse contact lookup, or follow how to find an abuse contact.
• Send a complaint using the template in reporting abuse to a hosting provider.
• Or report the site to Fraudpol and we handle the host, registrar and blocklists.

Be wary of anyone who calls afterwards claiming to be from Report Fraud, the police or your bank and asks you to move money "to safety". See recovery scams.