How to report a scam website, and what it actually changes

This is the step that can actually put the money back. The other two point elsewhere and are worth doing for other reasons.

If you paid by card, ask for a chargeback. Your bank disputes the transaction with the merchant's bank and may refund you. For undelivered goods the window commonly runs from the date delivery was due, not from the date you paid — which is the opposite of what most people assume.

If you paid by bank transfer, this route does not exist. The detail is in the piece on how chargeback works.

Do not wait for the outcome of any report before doing this. They run independently, and the bank's clock is the one that expires. What to do day by day is in the piece on an order that never arrived.

Which authority depends on where you are and where the trader is. Start with your own country's; if you are in the EU and the trader is in another member state, the European Consumer Centre network is built for exactly that. For a cross-border complaint more widely, econsumer.gov collects reports on behalf of authorities in over forty countries.

A report should carry the shop's address and the trading name with its registration number, the order date, the amount and the payment method, a factual account of what happened, and attachments: the order confirmation, the payment record, the correspondence and screenshots of the site. Take the screenshot of the product page and its price as early as you can — fraudulent shops disappear and take the evidence with them.

Now the unwelcome part. A report will not get your money back. An authority checks whether a trader is complying with the law. It does not represent you and does not enforce your claim.

It is still worth filing. Public warning lists are built out of reports like yours, and our scanner reads the ones it can. One report may not be enough; several against the same shop raise the chance it is looked at.

This one is less well known and it points straight at your dispute. Many countries run free ADR or ombudsman schemes for consumer complaints, and in some sectors traders are obliged to belong to one.

The difference from a report matters. A report asks whether the trader is obeying the law; the parties are the authority and the trader, and the outcome is an inspection or a fine. An ADR case is about your specific dispute; the parties are you and the trader, and the outcome is a settlement between you.

The catch is that nobody can force a trader into a settlement. With a shop that has gone silent and probably no longer exists, it is a dead end. With a shop that does exist and is simply arguing about a return, it is the cheapest way to move things along.

Decide on the basis of whether the shop has a traceable company behind it. If you do not know, check it before you write anything.

When this is not a commercial dispute but a fraud. The difference is intent: a shop that never shipped anything and only collects payments is not administering returns badly, it is committing a crime.

Report it to your national police or their online-crime service. Take what you sent the consumer authority.

It is worth reporting even for a small amount. Patterns are built from individual reports, and without yours the shop is invisible to them.

A national authority supervises traders operating in its own country. For a trader elsewhere in the EU, the European Consumer Centre network has a sister office in every member state.

For a trader outside the EU we know of no route that reliably returns money. Your bank is what is left, which is why the payment method matters more on a foreign shop than anywhere else. More on that in the piece on how to pay.

Our scanner runs into the same wall. The company registers it can query are the Czech and Slovak ones; for a shop registered elsewhere that signal is missing, and we say so on the result.