File a local police report
You will need a case number for your bank, your insurer, and any civil claim. Bring printed evidence and ask for it to be recorded as fraud rather than a civil dispute with a seller.
First 48 hours
The money is gone and the trailer is not coming. Start here.
Speed decides the outcome. Every hour reduces what can be frozen or recalled, so work down this list now rather than waiting to see whether the seller answers.
Do these first
- 01Within the hour
Telephone your bank and use the word fraud
Call the bank directly — not the app, not a message — and ask explicitly for a recall on the outgoing wire, saying the words fraud and unauthorised beneficiary. A wire that has not yet been withdrawn from the receiving account can sometimes be pulled back the same day, and almost never after that. Ask the bank to freeze any further scheduled payments, flag the beneficiary account, and open a written case with a reference number you keep.
- 02Within the hour
Report a Zelle, Cash App, or Venmo payment as a scam in writing
Because you authorised the payment yourself, reimbursement is discretionary rather than guaranteed — but report it anyway, in writing, through the app and through your bank, and escalate past the first representative. Where an operator split the deal into several transfers to stay under a ceiling, report every leg. Zelle transfers sent through a bank's own app are subject to that bank's reimbursement policy and its error-resolution process, so put the claim on the record the same day.
- 03Same day
Dispute anything paid by card or PayPal goods-and-services
A card deposit is your strongest position: open a fraud dispute with the issuer and, separately, a chargeback for goods not received. PayPal goods-and-services payments carry buyer protection; friends-and-family payments do not. If a transport company or escrow firm took a separate card payment, dispute that too — it is the same operation under a second name and the same charge type.
- 04Same day
Capture the listing and the site before they vanish
Screenshot everything now: the listing with the price, the whole website including the about, inventory, and contact pages, the invoice and bill of sale, the bank details you were given, the tracking portal, and the full text and message history with names and phone numbers visible. These sites come down within days of a report and your evidence goes with them. Save full-page captures with the URL and timestamp visible, and photograph the paperwork.
- 05Within 24 hours
File with IC3 and your state attorney general
Submit the website, the exact amounts and dates, the beneficiary name and bank, the receiving account number, and every contact identity. For a domestic wire this is the highest-value step you have: IC3's Recovery Asset Team can trigger the Financial Fraud Kill Chain and ask the receiving bank to freeze the funds, and that process is built around reports filed within roughly seventy-two hours. File even if the amount feels small.
- 06Within 24 hours
Warn the real dealer whose identity was used
If the site cloned a genuine dealership, copied its inventory, or reprinted its licence number, telephone that dealership's office and tell them. They can pursue the registrar, the host, and legal routes that are not available to you, and they will usually already be collecting reports from other buyers who called the same number. It is also how a scattered set of individual losses becomes one documented operation.
Then, over the following days
Report the domain to its registrar and host
Find the registrar through WHOIS and send an abuse report with your evidence. Registrar suspension is the fastest way to take a live site down before the next buyer pays a deposit.
Report the listing and the ads
Report the marketplace listing, the Facebook or Craigslist account, and any paid advertising that carried it. Ad takedowns cut the traffic the operation depends on to find the next buyer.
Report to the FTC
File at reportfraud.ftc.gov. It feeds the Consumer Sentinel database that federal and state investigators use to connect complaints against the same operator across states.
Tell the equipment listing sites
If the photographs came from TractorHouse, Machinery Trader, RV Trader, or an auction house, tell them. They can pull the stolen images and flag the account that reposted them.
Put the seller on the record
File a report here so the dealer name, website, phone number, bank beneficiary, and escrow company are documented and searchable. Reused details are what link a brand-new site to an operation already known.
Warning — the second scam
Whoever contacts you next offering to recover the money is part of the same trade
Within weeks of a loss becoming known, most people are approached by a recovery agency, an asset tracing firm, a lawyer holding a settlement, or someone claiming to work for a federal fund. They will know the amount and the dealer name, because victim lists are compiled, traded, and reworked. Every one of them charges an upfront retainer, filing fee, or release tax, and the recovered balance they show you does not exist. Recovery runs through your bank, your card issuer, and law enforcement, and none of them ask you to pay to get your money back. Neither do we, ever.
See sellers already on recordOfficial reporting channels
File with the body covering where you live. These are official government and law-enforcement channels, and none of them charge a fee to accept a fraud report.
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
United States
The primary channel for wire fraud. Complaints route to FBI field offices and to the Recovery Asset Team, which can request a freeze on a recent wire.
www.ic3.govFTC ReportFraud
United States
Feeds the Consumer Sentinel database used by federal, state, and international investigators to connect complaints against the same seller.
reportfraud.ftc.govYour state attorney general
United States
Consumer protection divisions pursue unlicensed dealers and out-of-state operators, and can act where a federal threshold is not met.
www.naag.org/find-my-agFMCSA (trucks and transport)
United States
File a complaint when a seller or transport broker used a DOT or MC number that was cloned, expired, or belonged to somebody else.
nccdb.fmcsa.dot.govCanadian Anti-Fraud Centre
Canada
Joint RCMP, Competition Bureau, and OPP centre that collects fraud reports and issues national alerts.
antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.caAction Fraud
United Kingdom
National reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; reports go to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.
www.actionfraud.police.uk
Put the seller on the record
Once the urgent steps are done, file a report or email reports@equipmentscamreport.com. Your name is never published. The dealer name, website, phone number, and bank beneficiary are — so the next buyer searching them finds this before the wire goes out.