The money is gone, the "seller" has vanished, and your first instinct is probably to call your bank and hope. Your bank will ask you to do something first: report it to Action Fraud. Not because the police are likely to catch the person who scammed you — for most individual cases, they won't — but because that report starts a paper trail that your bank, the regulator, and the national fraud database all rely on to work out whether you get your money back.
What Action Fraud actually is
Action Fraud is the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. It isn't a local police station and it doesn't send an officer to your door. Reports submitted through actionfraud.police.uk or by phone on 0300 123 2040 go to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), run by the City of London Police, which is the national policing lead for fraud in England and Wales.
It's worth setting expectations correctly here: fraud now accounts for over 40% of all recorded crime in England and Wales, according to Financial Times reporting on Home Office data, yet receives roughly 1% of police resources. Action Fraud's own case-disposal rate for producing an individual investigating officer is low. Most reports feed a national intelligence picture — used to spot patterns, link cases together, and support larger investigations — rather than triggering a personal detective assigned to your case. That's not a reason to skip reporting. It's a reason to understand what the report is actually for.
What the report is really for: unlocking your bank refund
The real, practical value of an Action Fraud report for most victims isn't the criminal investigation — it's what it unlocks with your bank and the regulator. Since 7 October 2024, the Payment Systems Regulator's (PSR) mandatory reimbursement rules require UK payment providers to refund victims of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud — scams where you were tricked into authorising the transfer yourself, such as romance scams, impersonation scams, or fake online sellers — for payments made by Faster Payments or CHAPS.
Under these rules, your bank must reach a decision within 5 business days of your claim, or up to 35 business days if it genuinely needs more time to investigate. Reimbursement is capped at £85,000 per claim. As part of reporting the fraud, you're expected to report it to the police yourself or consent to your bank reporting it to Action Fraud on your behalf — either route satisfies the requirement, but filing it yourself and holding your own crime reference number gives you documentation you control, rather than relying on your bank to have logged it correctly.
What isn't covered — read this before you assume you're protected
The mandatory reimbursement rules have real limits, and knowing them saves you from a frustrating surprise later:
- They only cover Faster Payments and CHAPS transfers — not card payments, cheques, cash, or BACS
- They don't cover international transfers where either account is outside the UK
- They don't apply to fraud that happened before 7 October 2024
- You must claim within 13 months of the final payment to the fraudster
- Your bank can decline if it finds evidence of "gross negligence" — for example, ignoring an explicit fraud warning your bank showed you before you sent the payment
- Civil disputes — like a seller who simply never shipped what you paid for, with no deception involved — aren't APP fraud and follow a different (chargeback) process
How to file an Action Fraud report, step by step
- Report as soon as possible. There's no minimum loss amount and no such thing as "too small to bother" — the report matters for your bank claim regardless of the amount.
- Go to actionfraud.police.uk and use the online reporting form, or call 0300 123 2040 (Monday–Friday, 8am–8pm). If a crime is in progress or you're in immediate danger, call 999 instead.
- Have your financial details ready: the amount sent, the date, the payment method (bank transfer, card, etc.), and — if you made a bank transfer — the sort code and account number you sent money to, if you have them.
- Include the fraudster's digital footprint: the exact website URL, the phone number or email address they used, and any social media handles or usernames involved.
- Write down a timeline of your communications with the scammer — dates and times of calls, texts, emails, or messages — rather than a general summary. Specific timestamps are more useful to investigators than a paraphrased account.
- Attach evidence — screenshots of the listing or conversation, emails, and payment confirmations.
- Save your crime reference number the moment you receive it. You'll need it for your bank's fraud team, and often for travel insurance or other claims too.
After you report: what to do with your crime reference number
Don't wait for Action Fraud to update you before contacting your bank — the two processes run in parallel, not one after the other. Call your bank's fraud team directly, give them the crime reference number, and formally request reimbursement under the PSR rules if the payment qualifies (Faster Payments or CHAPS, made after 7 October 2024). If your bank refuses or you disagree with its decision, you can escalate free of charge to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
When to also report elsewhere
Action Fraud is the right starting point for most scams, but a few situations call for an additional report to a more specialised body:
- Investment or pension scams — also report to the FCA via ScamSmart, which maintains a warning list of unauthorised firms and known scam clones
- Identity theft used to open credit in your name — apply for Cifas Protective Registration so lenders run extra checks before approving credit against your details
- A UK business that misled you (not deception, but unfair sales practices) — Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133, which feeds Trading Standards
A realistic bottom line
Reporting to Action Fraud is unlikely to end with a detective knocking on a scammer's door. What it reliably does is create the documented record your bank and the regulator require to process a refund claim properly, and it feeds a national intelligence system that has, at scale, supported account freezes and larger prosecutions when reports link together across victims. File it promptly, keep your reference number safe, and treat your bank's reimbursement claim as the process that actually gets your money back — with the police report as the document that makes that claim credible.