How To Track Down Someone Who Scammed You? [7 Proven Methods]

Although smart ways exist to avoid schemes, scammers are only getting bolder and developing more schemes. Among many, that leads to 1 in 3 Americans falling victim to phone scams.

Moreover, scams lead to a loss of a significant amount of money. According to CNBC, US citizens lost $68 million to job scams in 2021. In addition, there are phishing, email, shopping, and dating scams.

What do you do if you fall prey to such cons? How to find out who a scammer is? Can you even track down your scammer?

Here we simplified some practical ways to help you identify a scammer from a mile away or track them down after they scammed you.

How To Track A Scammer - 5 Ways That Work

Now that technology is fast advancing, scammers are creating many ways to carry out their schemes.

After being scammed, it feels challenging to even think of tracking down who scammed you. But with the right tools and a can-do attitude, tracking down an online scammer is possible.

Firstly put together all the information you have on the scam and scammer, such as:

• Texts
• Chats
• Photos
• Emails
• Names
• Images
• Addresses
• Phone calls
• Bank accounts
• Transaction IDs
• Phone numbers

In this article, we provide the actions you can take depending on the information you have of the scammer, so keep reading.

Tracking down a Phone Scammer

As mentioned earlier, spam calls are one of the most common cons in the USA. 

People report getting a call from an unknown number saying they won the lottery or will be in trouble with IRS, which is most likely a scammer.

If that ever happens to you, you can use reverse phone number search services to find the owner who called you. There are a few good reverse phone lookup services, and TruthFinder is one of them.

TruthFinder gives you an extensive report, including the following details:

• Who owns the phone number
• Name, address, and other phone numbers associated with the initial number

Here's how you can search for details of a potential scam call or details of a person who scammed you:

How To Track a Scammer Using The Name They Gave You

Considering the low success rate of online schemes, scammers usually target many people. However, they cannot create as many fake names, ids, and emails.

Some scammers repeatedly use the same fake names, emails, addresses, and ids while targeting different people. By doing so, they usually leave a digital footprint somewhere. 

Techjury regards BeenVerified as one of the best background check sites. It works to keep track of profiles that people use on the Internet. 

Background check services like BeenVerified keep track of profiles people make over the Internet.

To track your scammer by name:

Tracking a Scammer Using their Email Address

Phishing emails are another popular means scammers use. According to 2022 statistics, about 1 billion phishing emails were sent in the same year.

These scams usually make you click on links. When you do, the link leads to a page asking you for personal information, such as:

• Bank details
• Credit card numbers

Now, the best defense against these email scams is awareness. Remember that not every email you get is legit. That said, access every email you get from a stranger with caution. In that way, you can easily keep these phishing or email scammers at bay.

At the same time, many people are unaware of such hacks and attacks, making them vulnerable. If you are one victim, you can use Intelius to try and track down the person who emailed you. 

Here’s how to use it:

Finding Social Media Scammers

Undeniably, social media has become favored for scammers to find easy targets. Every social media platform is famous for some type of scam, such as:

• Instagram romance scams
• Facebook Marketplace scams
• Business scams in WhatsApp and Telegram

You might soon be their next victim if you are unaware that lurking eyes are everywhere online.

Background check services like PeopleLooker.com let you know everything about your social media acquaintances. In addition to the data from public sources like courthouses, it also scrapes data from all popular social media sites on people. 

With PeopleLooker.com’s Social Media Feature, you can cross-check your scammer's information, like:

• Name
• Place
• Address
• Marital status
• Place of work
• Education details
• Social media profiles
• Number of previous marriages and divorces

All you have to do is feed the platform the username of the social media profile trying to scam you or already scammed. 

Here is how you can explore the details of social media scammers with PeopleLooker.com:

Conducting a Picture Search To Track Down a Scammer

If you've exhausted all other search methods and all you have is a picture of the scammer, you can still carry out a scammer picture search, which SocialCatfish features.

SocialCatfish is an online investigation service that’s been proven and tested to find scammers by photos. Its Image Search feature lets you reverse engineer a picture, getting a  facial recognition match in its database.

Find the information you want by following these steps:

To get extensive reports and unlimited image searching, Social Catfish charges a subscription fee of $5.99 for five days. After that, the fee will be raised to $26.99 monthly.

How to Track Down a Scammer in a Shopping Scam

Online shopping became a trend during the pandemic due to its convenience. However, people with malicious intent also saw this as a huge opportunity.

Better Business Bureau reported that online shopping scams were the most dangerous in 2021. Reports show 75% of shoppers lost money to various shopping scams. 

How did the cons do it? With technology, scammers easily create bogus shopping websites that look genuine, mimicking the layout of real e-commerce sites. They even use identical URLs.

Once a victim purchases something from a fake website, the scammer will send a counterfeit item (or nothing). But the real deal for them is stealing financial and personal information for other scam activities.

If you know how to find someone's IP address, it could be a great start to track the location of a scammer. One way to do that is through Whois Lookup.

Tracking Down a Scammer Using Whois Lookup:

Identifying the IP address makes it possible to determine the country, region, and city where the server hosting the fake website is located.

Identifying a Scammer in a Dating Scam

Caution should be exercised when using dating sites due to emerging cases of romance or dating scams. About 70,000 people even reported being victims of dating scams in 2022. According to Comparitech, 1 in 7 profiles on popular dating apps might be fake.

But for those of you that don’t know anything about romance scams, its nature is:

A person will steal photos and information of attractive people and put those in their profiles. Sometimes, they use their real face, but seldom their real name.

Slowly, the scammer builds trust and relationships with their victims before asking for money or personal details.

To determine if someone on a dating site is scamming you, follow these steps:

Bottom Line

Tracking down a scammer can be challenging, but it is possible based on the methods above. Remember to gather as much information as possible about the scammer. 

To help you further, check if anyone else has reported the scammer or if they have any criminal records. 

Still, prevention is the best defense against scams, so always be vigilant. Stay safe.