Scammers are posing as personnel from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to deceive and revictimize scam victims, the agency warned in a public service announcement on Monday.
One of the schemes involved scammers targeting people whom they had already scammed. The victims would tell the scammers that the fraud would be reported to the FBI, at which point the fraudsters would impersonate FBI personnel and initiate conversations on platforms like Facebook Messenger, according to the agency.
They would ask victims to update the submitted IC3 report via Messenger or Telegram links, according to the FBI.
The links may contain malicious code or be used to collect additional financial information about the victim, the agency said.
However, it only allows users to interact with the complaint submission. Clicking on other links returns the user to the home page.
These tactics give victims a false sense of security by allowing criminals to impersonate government personnel or entities, thereby increasing the risk of revictimization.
According to the FBI, complainants reported that scammers contact them through various means, including email, phone, or in person. The scammers also use social media and forum advertisements.
“Almost all complainants indicated the scammers claimed to have recovered the victim’s lost funds or offered to assist in recovering funds. However, the claim is a ruse to revictimize those who have already lost money to scams,” the agency said.
The alert is an update to another FBI alert issued in April 2025, which warned about scammers using fake female profiles on social media to dupe victims of financial scams by posing as fellow victims. The targets were redirected to a fake IC3 chief director, who then duped the victims to gain access to their financial information.
At the time, the FBI said it had received more than 100 IC3 impersonation scam reports between December 2023 and February 2025.
The agency also warned people that IC3 will never contact individuals through social media, phone apps, phone, email, or public forums.
In its latest alert, the FBI clarified that IC3 does not maintain a social media presence. Neither does it investigate crimes nor recover funds through Facebook or other platforms.
The IC3’s Internet Crime Report 2025 said it received 32,424 complaints of government impersonation last year, resulting in more than $797 million in losses to complainants.
The report said that AI-enabled synthetic content was becoming “increasingly difficult to detect and easier to make,” allowing criminal actors to carry out successful fraud schemes. Last year, the IC3 received more than 22,000 AI-related complaints, with losses exceeding $893 million.
In April, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued an investor alert about investment scams using deepfake technologies to defraud people out of their money, according to an April 6 statement from the attorney general’s office.
Fraudsters are publishing ads on Facebook or Instagram featuring recognizable figures, such as Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary.
“From fake investment platforms to deepfake celebrity endorsements to fraudulent cryptocurrencies, these schemes are becoming more sophisticated,” James said in the statement.
“I urge everyone to remain vigilant, be skeptical of any social media investment ads, and remember: if an investment sounds too good to be true, it is probably a scam.”
