How to report a scam in India

Have these ready first

The portal will ask for them, and hunting for a screenshot halfway through a form is how people give up.

• A screenshot of the message, showing the sender
• The sender’s number or sender ID, exactly as it appeared
• The date and time it arrived
• The amount, if money moved, and the transaction reference
• The account or UPI ID the money went to, if you have it
• Your own bank account number and the card’s last four digits

The three places

1. 1

   Call 1930

   The national cyber fraud helpline. Use it for anything involving money. They will take the details and raise a complaint on your behalf, and you will be given a reference number. Write it down.

2. 2

   File on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal

   cybercrime.gov.in — type that address into your browser yourself rather than following any link. You can file with or without a financial loss, and reporting a message that took nothing from you still helps: it is how patterns get spotted.

3. 3

   Tell your bank directly

   Use the fraud number printed on the back of your card, or the one inside the bank’s own app. Do not use a number from the message, and do not use a number you found by searching, which is how people reach fake helplines. Ask them to note the complaint reference from 1930.

Reporting the message itself

On most Android phones, opening the message, tapping the three dots and choosing to report spam or block sends it to your operator and stops further messages from that sender. On an iPhone, the option appears under the sender’s name at the top of the conversation.

Cyber cell details differ from state to state, and each bank has its own fraud line and sequence. Pages for both are being added.