Report OfferUp scammer accounts or report online dating scams at every app the scam crossed
Short answer. To report OfferUp scammer accounts, open the conversation, tap the three dots and choose Report, then file a Purchase Protection claim within 48 hours of delivery if you paid in the app. To report online dating scams, report the profile on the dating app, then every chat app and payment service the scammer moved you onto, and file with the FTC or the FBI's IC3.
Marketplace scams and romance scams have the same shape. First contact happens on an app with rules, and the money changes hands somewhere with fewer of them. An OfferUp buyer is asked to pay by Zelle "to save the fee". A dating match suggests moving to Signal, and three months later asks for USDT. Each move is a hop, and each hop is a separate place to report, with its own clock and its own powers.
This guide follows the trail in the order a scam usually travels it: the app where the scammer found you, the chat app you were moved to, the payment, and the agency that keeps the record. It covers OfferUp, dating apps, Vinted, Upwork, LinkedIn, Signal, Discord, Lemon8, Zelle, Venmo, USDT, Bluesky, Threads, Truth Social, Roblox, Steam, YouTube ads, Apple's App Store and Maps, Chrome extensions and scam websites behind Cloudflare. Report paths come from each service's own help pages where those could be read on 15 October 2026, and the text says where they could not. Nothing here is legal or financial advice.
How do you report OfferUp scammer accounts and online dating scams when the scam crossed apps?
Report each hop the scam took, starting with the hop that moved money. The payment hop, meaning a bank, a card, Zelle, Venmo or a crypto exchange, has the shortest clock and the only power to stop or reverse funds. The app where you met the scammer can remove the account. The chat app can ban a number. The FTC or IC3 report keeps the record that banks and exchanges ask for.
The order matters because the clocks differ so much. OfferUp's Purchase Protection gives buyers 48 hours from delivery to file a claim, according to ESET's WeLiveSecurity guide of 4 February 2026, which links OfferUp's terms. A card dispute usually stays open for weeks. A Zelle payment to an enrolled recipient lands in minutes. A dating app report has no deadline at all, which is why it is the report people file first and the one that matters least for the money. The same order applies whether you report OfferUp scammer accounts or a dating match.
Consumers filed 3 million fraud reports with the FTC in 2025 and reported losing $15.9 billion. Imposter scams, the category that includes romance scams, accounted for more than 1 million reports and more than $3.5 billion.Federal Trade Commission, testimony to the Joint Economic Committee, 25 March 2026
The most useful single piece of evidence on the whole trail is the off-platform message: the line in which the scammer asked you to leave the app. "Text me on WhatsApp." "Pay by Zelle so we skip the fee." "My Upwork is restricted, email me instead." On OfferUp, Vinted and Upwork that request is itself a rule break the platform can act on even if no money moved, and it timestamps the moment the platform's protection stopped applying.
Before you report OfferUp scammer profiles, dating matches or anyone else on the trail, save five things:
- The first profile. Username, profile link and screenshots of the listing or match on the app where contact began.
- The off-platform message. The request to move to another app or payment method, with its date and time visible.
- The second identity. The phone number, Signal or Telegram handle, email address or Discord tag used after the move.
- The payment record. Transaction ID, date, amount and recipient name, or for crypto the wallet address, network and transaction hash.
- Your side of the chat. An export or screenshots, because a banned account usually takes the whole conversation with it.
A ban is the one outcome a reporter can reliably cause, and a ban erases the scammer's side of the record. Evidence first, then the money hop, then the accounts.
How do you report an OfferUp scammer, and what does Purchase Protection cover?
To report OfferUp scammer profiles, open Messages, tap the conversation, tap the three dots and choose Report; the same Report option sits in the menu on the user's profile, in the app and on the desktop site. If you paid through the OfferUp app for a shipped item, file a Purchase Protection claim in the Help Center within 48 hours of delivery. Cash deals and off-app payments are not covered.
Anyone who tries to report OfferUp scammer listings joins a busy queue. ESET's guide repeats OfferUp's own claim of more than 30 million transactions a year, and lists ten common scams on the platform: counterfeit goods, payment scams, account takeover, empty boxes, phishing links, phishing emails, deposit requests, bounced checks, fake investment offers and fake jobs.
Purchase Protection covers items significantly not as described, damaged in transit, counterfeit or never received, according to the same guide. It excludes anything bought off-app, items that break OfferUp's rules such as gift cards and alcohol, and anything paid for in cash in person. A buyer who met in a car park and paid cash has a police matter, not an OfferUp claim. Report it locally as theft or fraud and keep the OfferUp report as supporting evidence. The steps to report OfferUp scammer accounts are the same either way.
Sellers are targeted too. The overpaid check, the fake "OfferUp payment confirmation" email and the request for a six-digit verification code are all aimed at the person selling. A code request is an account takeover attempt: if you read a code out, change the OfferUp password, then the email password, and only then use the app to report OfferUp scammer behaviour. One 2025 guide said OfferUp had narrowed to local pickup, while ESET's February 2026 guide still describes shipped-item claims, so check whether shipping is offered in your area before relying on Purchase Protection.
OfferUp's help pages could not be read by our tools on 15 October 2026, so the menu labels above come from ESET's guide and should be checked against the current app. A seller who wants to report OfferUp scammer buyers that never got any money can still do it: a buyer who asks for your phone number "to send a Zelle" before seeing the item has shown the pattern. Our service-by-service scam reporting guide compares OfferUp with Poshmark, eBay and Temu, which helps when the same person is listing on several marketplaces.
Vinted, Upwork and LinkedIn: how do you report a scam that asked you to leave?
Report it on the platform whose rule you were asked to break. Vinted, Upwork and LinkedIn all tell users to keep payment and conversation inside the service, so a message asking you to pay outside, open an outside link or switch apps is reportable before any loss. Vinted takes phishing reports by email as well as in the app, and Upwork uses a flag on the job post itself. The logic is the one sellers use to report OfferUp scammer buyers who ask for Zelle.
Vinted
To report payment outside Vinted scam attempts, use the Report option on the member's profile or message, then contact Vinted support through Contact us. Vinted's help article on phishing (help/628) asks for screenshots, the member's username or profile link, the sender's email or phone number, and any bank details you were asked to pay into. To report Vinted phishing scam emails, forward them to [email protected].
Vinted says it cannot be held responsible for losses caused by scams or phishing, and its help pages note that you never need to leave the app to confirm a payment or receive an order. A "sale confirmed" email that does not match anything in the app is the classic fake. Buyer Protection applies only to orders paid through Vinted's own checkout, with two days after delivery to raise a problem.
Upwork
To report scam job on Upwork listings, open the job post and use "Flag as inappropriate", the route Upwork's own scam guide names; proposals, contracts and messages carry the same flag. Freelancers on Upwork's community forum report that connects spent on a job come back automatically when Upwork removes the post. To report Upwork job scam patterns that reached your messages, flag the message and send the chat transcript to Upwork support.
Upwork's guide says no legitimate client asks for upfront fees or security deposits. The two loudest phishing signals are a request for ID copies or bank details and a request to continue on Telegram, WhatsApp or personal email. To report Upwork phishing scam messages that link to a fake login or "onboarding" page, flag the message and do not enter anything. If you already did, change the Upwork password and turn on two-step verification before reporting.
To report scam on LinkedIn profiles, open the profile, click More, then Report / Block, and choose "This person is impersonating someone" or "This account is not a real person"; messages and job posts have their own Report option. LinkedIn's help article 61664 states that reported members won't know who made the report.
LinkedIn says 99.7% of the fake accounts it stopped between July and December 2025 were stopped proactively, and 97.8% by automated defences.LinkedIn Community Report, July–December 2025
The proactive figure describes LinkedIn's filters, not member reports. A fake recruiter who has already messaged you got past those filters, which is exactly the case a member report exists for.
Where do you report online dating scams and romance scams?
Report online dating scams in three places: the dating app, through the profile's Report option; the app where the conversation continued, if the scammer moved you; and a government record, which in the United States means the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and, when money or crypto was sent, the FBI's IC3 at ic3.gov. Call your bank first if money left your account in the last few days.
Romance scams follow a script that leaves the dating app report weak on its own. The match is warm, consistent and quick to suggest another app "because I rarely open this one". Once the conversation moves, the dating app has nothing left to review except the profile. To report romance scams in a way investigators can use, you need the second app's handle as well as the original profile.
The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network recorded 55,604 romance scam complaints in the first nine months of 2025, up 22% on the same period of 2024, with reported losses above $1.16 billion and a third-quarter median loss of $2,218.Global Dating Insights, 26 February 2026, citing FTC Consumer Sentinel data
Anyone who wants to report online dating scams should still start with the app. The dating app report reaches a trust and safety team that can remove the profile, block linked devices and match the photos against other accounts. On most dating apps the option sits on the profile behind a three-dot or flag icon, and the category list rarely says "scam": Grindr's menu, for example, has seven categories and none of them is scam, so Spam or Impersonation is the closest fit. When the romance began in comments or DMs on a video app, Clearline's guide to reporting a TikTok scammer covers the same pattern.
Anyone who wants to report online dating scams to a national body outside the US has an equivalent: Report Fraud (formerly Action Fraud) in the UK, Scamwatch and the police in Australia, and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre in Canada. The report does not bring money back. It feeds the database that investigators and banks search, and it gives you a reference number to quote.
Report someone catfishing me: what counts?
To report someone catfishing me style accounts, meaning a profile built on someone else's photos, report it as a fake or impersonating profile rather than as harassment. If the photos are yours, you are the impersonated person and most platforms accept a first-person impersonation report with ID. If they belong to a stranger, a reverse image search with Google Lens, TinEye or Bing Visual Search usually finds the real owner, and the report should say the photos are stolen.
Catfishing on its own is not a crime in most US states. It becomes one when it is used to obtain money, to threaten or to stalk. If the catfish has asked for money, gift cards or crypto, handle the case as a romance scam and add the FTC and IC3 reports, the same two desks used to report online dating scams of every kind.
When the romance ends in an "investment"
The most expensive dating scams end with a trading tip. The match shows profits on a trading app, coaches the victim to buy USDT on a real exchange, and has them send it to a wallet controlled by a fake platform. The FBI tracks the pattern, often called pig butchering, under cryptocurrency investment fraud.
The FBI's IC3 received 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints in 2025 with losses of about $11.37 billion; cryptocurrency investment fraud alone accounted for 61,559 complaints and $7.2 billion.FBI IC3 2025 Internet Crime Report, via The Block, 12 April 2026
People who report online dating scams of this kind should report the exchange transfer in the same hour they report the profile. The money section below explains why the wallet address and transaction hash matter more than the match's name.
Signal, Discord and Lemon8: how do you report the app the scammer moved you to?
Report the second app as a case of its own. On Signal, use Report and Block on the message request, or report from the chat later. On Discord, report the server from the server menu and single messages from their own menu. On Lemon8, report the profile or post from its three-dot menu. Each report reaches a company that never saw the first app, so it needs its own evidence.
Signal
To report scammer on Signal accounts, use "Report and Block" on the message request that appears when a stranger messages you first. Signal's design limits what a report can contain: as BleepingComputer reported when the feature launched in 2021, a spam report sends Signal only the sender's phone number and a one-time message ID, never the message content. Signal staff never start a two-way chat, so a "Signal Support" account messaging you is a scam by definition.
To report Signal impersonation of a friend or a brand, report and block the impostor, then warn the real person through another channel. Signal cannot read the conversation, so it cannot judge whether the account is copying anyone. The report feeds Signal's spam filtering through the number; it does not open an impersonation case. For contrast, the Facebook impersonation report walkthrough shows what a full impersonation form asks of the person copied.
Discord
To report scam Discord server operators, open the server, click the server name at the top and choose Report Server if your client shows it; single messages are reported from the message's own menu, and Discord's Trust & Safety team also takes reports through the request form on support.discord.com. Users on Discord's community forum complain that some servers can be reported only from inside, which means joining a scam server to report it. A copied message link is the most useful thing a report can include.
Fake "verification" bots are the common Discord scam: a server asks new members to scan a QR code or log in on an outside page, and the account is taken over. If that happened, change the password, which signs out other sessions, and turn on two-factor authentication before filing anything.
Lemon8
To report scam account on Lemon8 profiles, open the profile or post, tap the three dots and choose Report. Lemon8 belongs to ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, and TikTok's US impersonation form lists Lemon8 among the products it covers, which gives an impersonated creator a form-based route as well as the in-app button. Scams that Lemon8 users describe in posts on the app include fake check purchases of artwork and follow-request lures from accounts that follow thousands and are followed by few.
Telegram
Telegram is the most common destination for scams that begin somewhere else. Clearline has a separate breakdown of Telegram's reporting bots and what they do, including which reports reach Telegram's moderators at all and which only reach a third-party bot.
How do you report a scammer on Zelle, Venmo or USDT before the money moves on?
Report the payment to whoever moved it, within hours if you can. A Zelle scam goes to your own bank, not to Zelle. A Venmo scam goes to Venmo through the payment's report option. A USDT scam goes to the exchange you sent from and to police or IC3 with the transaction hash, because Tether freezes wallets at the request of law enforcement, not of a victim.
Zelle
To report scammer on Zelle payments, call the bank or credit union you sent from and use the words "imposter scam" if the scammer pretended to be a bank, a government agency or a business. Zelle's operator, Early Warning Services, said that from 30 June 2023 participating banks must reimburse consumers for qualifying imposter scams, as Reuters reported in November 2023. A payment you sent willingly to a stranger for an OfferUp item that never arrived is usually treated as authorised, and the bank may decline it.
Zelle's own site blocked automated reading in our tests, so the reimbursement rule above comes from Reuters' reporting rather than Zelle's page. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Zelle's operator and three large banks in December 2024 over fraud handling, and dropped the suit on 4 March 2025, NPR reported. Anyone trying to report OfferUp scammer payments made by Zelle should expect the bank, not OfferUp, to decide.
Venmo
To report Venmo scam payments, open the payment in your Venmo activity, tap it and choose the option to report or dispute it; a profile can also be reported from its own menu. Venmo's Purchase Protection applies only to payments marked as a purchase from an eligible seller, and the purchase tag cannot be added after the payment is sent. To report Venmo scammer profiles that asked for payment as "friends and family" to skip a fee, report the profile and keep that message, because the request is the sign of a seller avoiding protection. The same request appears when people report OfferUp scammer buyers who offer Venmo.
A Venmo payment to a scammer can be cashed out to a linked bank account within minutes. If the payment was funded by a card, the card issuer is a second, independent desk with its own dispute process.
USDT
To report USDT scammer wallets, start with the exchange you bought the USDT on: its support team can flag the receiving address and, if the funds reached another regulated exchange, ask that exchange to hold them. Then file with local police and IC3, giving the transaction hash, the receiving address and the network, usually Tron or Ethereum. Tether, the issuer, can freeze USDT on the chains it supports, and it acts on law enforcement requests.
Tether said in February 2026 that it had helped the US Department of Justice seize nearly $61 million tied to pig-butchering scams, and by April 2026 it reported supporting more than 2,300 cases and freezing more than $4.4 billion in total.Decrypt and The Block, February–April 2026, reporting Tether's statements
Those totals are Tether's own figures. They show that freezes happen in volume, not that a single victim's report produces one. The IC3 Recovery Asset Team froze $679 million of the $1.164 billion in losses it acted on in 2025, a 58% rate, according to The Block's summary of the IC3 report, and that team works mainly on recent bank transfers, which is another reason to report within days. For anyone who has to report online dating scams that ended in a crypto transfer, the wallet address is the evidence that matters.
A "recovery service" that contacts you after a crypto loss is the next scam. IC3 counted 10,516 recovery-scam complaints in 2025, with $1.4 billion lost, according to the same summary.
Bluesky, Threads and Truth Social: how do you report someone impersonating you?
Report the impersonating account from its profile menu, as the person being copied where the platform asks. Bluesky removes impersonation and handle-squatting accounts and requires parody accounts to say so in both the display name and the bio. Threads profiles hang off Instagram accounts, so Instagram's impersonation form applies. Truth Social publishes no reporting guide, which leaves the in-app report option as the only route.
Bluesky
To report someone impersonating me Bluesky accounts, open the impostor's profile, tap the three dots, choose Report account and pick the impersonation reason; Bluesky lets the reporter send the report to its own moderation or to a labeler they subscribe to. Bluesky tightened its impersonation rules in December 2024, MIT Technology Review reported, banning handle squatting and "identity churning", and said it had quadrupled its moderation team.
A domain handle is the defence that outlasts any report. Bluesky lets a person or business set a domain they own as their handle, which no impostor can copy, and a brand that already runs a website can switch in minutes.
Threads
To report someone on Threads for impersonation, open the profile, tap the three dots, choose Report and pick the option for pretending to be someone else. Every Threads profile is tied to an Instagram account, so the Instagram impersonation form (help.instagram.com/contact/636276399721841) is the route for someone with no account. That form takes one impersonating account per report and asks for a photo of your ID, which Instagram says it deletes within 30 days.
Truth Social
To report Truth Social fake profile accounts, open the profile or a post, use the three-dot menu and choose Report. We found no Truth Social help article describing the report flow on 15 October 2026, so that path is the standard one for apps built on Mastodon's open-source code, which Truth Social's was shown to be at its 2021 launch. To report Truth Social impersonation of a public figure, a business or an agency, include the real account's handle in the report text.
Truth Social's terms let the company disable accounts at its sole discretion, which cuts both ways: there is no published standard to argue from, but no formal barrier either. A 2022 Daily Dot investigation found accounts on the platform posing as US government agencies and officials, none of them verified. To report Truth Social scam account activity, such as a fake celebrity giveaway or a crypto "doubling" offer, report the post as well as the account, because the post carries the evidence.
X has a dedicated form that does more than any of the three. The X impersonation report form accepts reports from the person copied or an authorised representative, and it asks for the proof that the in-app button never collects.
How do you report a Roblox scammer or a Steam scammer?
Report the player through the platform's own tool and stop trading with them. To report Roblox scammer accounts, use Report Abuse on the profile or in the experience menu. To report Steam scammer accounts, open the profile, click the "..." button and choose Report Player. Neither platform returns items lost in a trade, and Steam tells the reporter when it takes action.
Steam Support's Scam FAQ is explicit: scammed items are not restored, because adding copies of an item would reduce the value of every other copy, and Steam may ban all of a scammer's accounts. To report Steam account scam attempts, such as a fake "Steam Support" message or a link to a fake trading site, report the profile and change the Steam password if you entered it anywhere. Real Steam staff never ask for a Steam Guard code.
Roblox treats deals arranged outside its official trading features as unsupported, so a Robux "middleman" or a trade agreed on Discord is reportable as a scam but not refundable. Clearline's guide on what gets a Roblox account banned explains how Roblox weighs player reports and why repeat reports from friends add little.
Gaming scams also run on live streams. A fake giveaway stream that loops a known streamer's footage is impersonation and copyright infringement at the same time, and the copyright route is often the faster of the two: see the guide to filing a copyright report on a Twitch stream.
Scam ads, apps, extensions and map listings: how do you report where the scam found you?
Report the entry point to the company that published it. Scam ads on YouTube go through the ad's info icon or My Ad Center. A scam app goes to Apple through Report a Problem. A scam Chrome extension goes through its Chrome Web Store listing. A fake map listing goes through Apple Maps' Report an Issue. A scam website behind Cloudflare goes to Cloudflare, which forwards the complaint to the host.
YouTube ads
To report scam ads on YouTube, tap the info or three-dot icon on the ad and choose Report ad, or find the ad later under recent ads in My Ad Center. Google's ads safety blog says a reported ad is reviewed against policy and taken down if appropriate, and that in some cases the advertiser's account is suspended.
Google removed 8.3 billion ads in 2025, including 602 million scam ads, and suspended 4 million scam-linked advertiser accounts.Google 2025 Ads Safety Report, 17 April 2026, via Search Engine Land
Apple's App Store
To report scam app Apple listings you downloaded, go to reportaproblem.apple.com or the app's App Store page, choose Report a Problem, sign in, and select "Report a scam or fraud". To report scam app to Apple Store reviewers when you never downloaded it, use the Report a Problem link on the listing where it appears. Apple added the scam option with iOS 15, TechCrunch reported in October 2021, and at launch it was available in the US only.
Apple said in May 2026 that it blocked more than $2.2 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2025, terminated 193,000 developer accounts and rejected 371,000 copycat app submissions.Apple App Store fraud prevention update, May 2026, via BleepingComputer
Chrome extensions
To report scam Chrome extension listings, open the extension's page in the Chrome Web Store and use Flag Issue, or use Google's Chrome Web Store report form for policy violations. When Google removes an extension as malicious, Chrome disables it in users' browsers and labels it malware, but the user still has to remove it, as coverage of a 2020 removal wave noted. An extension that began showing ads or redirecting searches after an update is the typical case: remove it first, then report it.
Apple Maps
To report scam business listing Apple Maps entries, such as a fake locksmith or a shop whose phone number has been swapped, open the place card, scroll to Report an Issue and describe what is wrong. The owner of a real business that has been cloned should claim the listing through Apple Business Connect and contact Apple support from there. Apple publishes no timeline for map reports, and business owners on local search forums describe fixes taking weeks.
Scam websites behind Cloudflare
To report scam website behind Cloudflare protection, use Cloudflare's abuse form at cloudflare.com/abuse. Cloudflare's trust hub says it forwards complaints to the site operator and the hosting provider and gives the host the origin IP address, because Cloudflare usually does not host the content itself. If the scam site has copied your own pages or photos, a copyright notice to the host is often faster, and the guide to a DMCA takedown for a website covers how that notice is written.
Which report goes first? The hop table
File the money report first, after saving evidence, and the account reports after that. The table compiles, for every hop in this guide, where the report goes, what that desk can do and which deadline applies, as published by each service or reported by a named source on 15 October 2026. Rows marked third-party were not confirmed on the service's own pages. The rows apply whether you report online dating scams or marketplace fraud.
| Hop | Where the report goes | What that desk can do | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| OfferUp | Messages, three dots, Report; Help Center claim | Remove account; refund in-app shipped orders | 48 hours from delivery (third-party) |
| Dating app | Profile, Report | Remove profile, block devices | None |
| Vinted | Report, plus [email protected] | Remove member; Buyer Protection on checkout orders | 2 days after delivery |
| Upwork | Flag as inappropriate | Remove post; return connects (third-party) | None published |
| More, Report / Block | Restrict or remove account | None | |
| Signal | Report and Block | Ban the number | None; no content sent |
| Discord | Report Server, message report, request form | Remove server or account | None |
| Lemon8 | Three dots, Report; TikTok US impersonation form | Remove account | None |
| Zelle | Your own bank | Reimburse qualifying imposter scams | Same day, before funds leave |
| Venmo | Payment, report | Purchase Protection if tagged as a purchase | Tag fixed when sent |
| USDT | Exchange, police, IC3 | Freeze through law enforcement | Days, before funds move again |
| Bluesky | Three dots, Report account | Remove impersonator | None |
| Threads | Three dots, Report; Instagram form | Remove impersonator | None |
| Truth Social | Three dots, Report (not documented) | Discretionary | None published |
| Steam | Profile, Report Player | Ban accounts; no item return | None; reporter notified |
| Roblox | Report Abuse | Ban account; no item return | None |
| YouTube ad | Ad menu, Report ad | Remove ad, suspend advertiser | None |
| Apple app | Report a Problem | Remove app; review a refund | Per purchase |
| Chrome extension | Flag Issue | Remove and disable | None |
| Apple Maps | Report an Issue | Correct or remove listing | None published |
| Site behind Cloudflare | cloudflare.com/abuse | Forward to host and operator | None |
Read down the last column. Only the marketplace claims and the payment rows carry a deadline that can lapse; every account report in the table can be filed a week later with the same effect. That is the whole case for the order. Someone who wants to report OfferUp scammer accounts and also recover a Zelle payment should call the bank first and open the OfferUp app second.
When will reporting a scam across apps not work?
A trail of reports fails when the payment was authorised and instant, when the evidence disappeared with a banned account, when the wrong person files an impersonation report, or when the dispute is about quality rather than fraud. It also fails quietly: most platforms never tell the reporter what happened, and a removed scammer can open a new account the same day.
Four further limits apply to every service above. Platforms do not share the reporter's identity with the scammer, but they rarely share outcomes with the reporter either, and Steam's notice is the exception. Mass reporting adds nothing: a hundred friends filing the same report weigh about the same as one detailed report, and several platforms penalise coordinated false reports. Police rarely investigate small losses, but banks and exchanges ask for the report number, which is why the police report is still filed.
And no platform report reverses a payment. People who report online dating scams expecting the dating app to refund a transfer are asking the one desk on the trail that never touched the money, and so are people who report OfferUp scammer accounts after a cash deal and expect a refund.
A paid service adds something in a narrow set of cases: filing as an authorised representative where a platform accepts one, tracking a clone of a person or brand that reappears across several apps, and preparing host and registrar complaints for a scam website. It cannot recover money or speed up a platform's review. Clearline handles impersonation and brand-abuse cases through its content removal service, and hijacked accounts through account recovery. We do not take fees to recover scammed money, and an upfront-fee recovery offer should be treated as the next scam.
Frequently asked questions
How do I report an OfferUp scammer?
To report OfferUp scammer accounts, open the conversation in Messages, tap the three dots and choose Report, or use Report on the user's profile. If you paid in the app for a shipped item, file a Purchase Protection claim within 48 hours of delivery. Cash and off-app payments are not covered.
Where do I report online dating scams?
Report online dating scams to the dating app through the profile's Report option, to any app the scammer moved you to, and to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. If money or crypto was sent, also file with the FBI's IC3 at ic3.gov and call your bank or exchange the same day.
Does OfferUp refund money paid by Zelle or in cash?
No. OfferUp's Purchase Protection excludes off-app payments and cash paid in person, according to ESET's February 2026 guide to OfferUp's terms. A Zelle payment goes to your own bank as a fraud claim, and a cash loss goes to local police. You can still report OfferUp scammer accounts from the conversation, which may stop the next sale.
Can a USDT payment to a scammer be frozen?
Sometimes. Tether can freeze USDT on the chains it supports and acts on law enforcement requests, so the route is the exchange you sent from plus a police and IC3 report with the transaction hash. Speed matters, because funds moved through several wallets are harder to trace.
Will the scammer know I reported them?
Generally not. LinkedIn states that reported members won't know who made the report, and Signal's report sends only the sender's number and a message ID. A scammer may still guess if you were the only person they were talking to, so block the account after reporting it. The same holds when you report online dating scams: Grindr, for one, says it won't reveal who reported a profile.
Should I pay a service that promises to recover scammed money?
No. IC3 counted 10,516 recovery-scam complaints in 2025 with $1.4 billion lost, according to The Block's summary of the IC3 report. Legitimate recovery runs through your bank, your exchange and law enforcement, and none of them charges an upfront fee.
A fake profile trading on your name?
Send the profile links, every app the copy has appeared on, and what it has asked people for. The review states which report or form applies on each platform, who has to file it, and what a report there can and cannot remove.