Report an online shopping or marketplace scam
Goods that never arrived, a store that vanished, a marketplace seller who took payment off-platform. These are among the more recoverable cases — if you act inside the dispute window.
Card payment? Raise a dispute with your issuer now. Time limits are commonly around 120 days, and for undelivered goods the clock often runs from the delivery date you were promised.
Free route first
Your card issuer costs nothing and is usually the fastest route. Start there. Most consumer protection authorities also take reports free of charge.
What to do now
- Capture the listing, the store page and the seller profile today — these are removed quickly.
- Keep the order confirmation, payment record and every message, exported in full.
- Contact your card issuer and use the words "goods not received" rather than "fraud" if you authorised the payment yourself.
- Report the listing to the marketplace — platform-level action protects the next buyer even when it does not recover your money.
What actually decides the outcome
These are the factors our assessment weighs. Two of them cannot be changed after the fact, which is why the honest answer is sometimes that little can be done.
- Whether you paid by card. This is by far the strongest position and the most common route to a refund.
- Whether you are inside the dispute window, measured from the promised delivery date rather than the purchase.
- Whether the seller is an identifiable business or an anonymous account.
- Whether you paid on-platform. Payments moved to bank transfer outside the marketplace lose every protection the platform offered.
What we do
- Work out which dispute category actually applies, because the wrong one is the most common reason a claim fails.
- Assemble the timeline and evidence pack in the form a card issuer expects.
- Identify the consumer protection body for the seller's jurisdiction and what it can realistically do.
- Tell you plainly when the amount involved is smaller than the effort, so you can decide.
We are a private company, not the police or a law firm. We do not guarantee recovery, and we will tell you when your outlook is poor rather than selling you hope. See our legal and verification page.
Questions people ask
I paid by bank transfer because the seller offered a discount. What now?
Harder, and worth reporting quickly anyway. Instant transfers have no chargeback, so recovery depends on the funds still sitting in the receiving account when your bank acts. Report within hours, not days.
The site has disappeared. Is the case dead?
Not necessarily. Your payment record still identifies the merchant account, and card disputes work against the merchant, not the website. Capture whatever still exists, including cached copies.
How much does it cost to have you look at it?
The assessment is free. Read the recovery outlook first and decide afterwards whether paid case work is worth it for your amount.