How to Report an Investment Scam in the Philippines: SEC, NBI, PNP-ACG
✓ Last verified 2026-07-27
If you’ve been defrauded, the order in which you act matters more than which agency you pick. Money moves fast; the window where a freeze or trace can help is short. Evidence, on the other hand, disappears quietly — group chats get deleted, websites go dark, accounts get closed.
Here’s a realistic sequence.
Step 0: Preserve evidence before anything else
Do this in the first hour, before you confront anyone. The moment a scammer realises you’ve caught on, chats and profiles start disappearing.
Capture:
- Full screenshots of every conversation — including the profile name and handle in frame, not just the message text
- Proof of every payment: reference numbers, timestamps, receiving account names and numbers, e-wallet transaction IDs
- The website and any app: full URLs, screenshots of the promises made, screenshots of your account balance page
- Names, phone numbers, and social profiles of whoever recruited you
- Anything showing withdrawals were refused or that extra fees were demanded before release — this is often the single most important item
Save copies outside the platform itself. Export chats where you can. Do not rely on an app you may lose access to.
Step 1: Contact your bank or e-wallet immediately
This is the only step with any realistic chance of stopping money in transit, and it is time-sensitive.
Call the fraud unit of your bank or e-wallet provider — not general customer service — and report the transaction as fraudulent. Give them the reference numbers you saved. Ask them to record the report and give you a reference number for it. You will need that number later.
Be clear-eyed about the odds: if funds have already been moved onward or converted, recovery is unlikely. Report anyway. It creates a record, and it may help freeze a mule account being used against other people.
If you have a dispute with a bank, e-wallet, or other BSP-supervised financial institution about how they handled it, the BSP Consumer Assistance Mechanism is the escalation path.
Step 2: Report to the SEC (for investment solicitation)
The Enforcement and Investor Protection Department (EIPD) is the SEC’s arm for investment scams and securities fraud. This is the right agency when someone solicited an investment from you — promised returns, a trading program, a “fund,” a paluwagan-style scheme, or an unlicensed broker taking deposits.
Filing is free. Complaints from defrauded investors about unauthorised public investment solicitation are exempt from filing fees.
How to file: submit through the SEC’s online complaint channel (the SEC iMessage portal, selecting the Enforcement and Investor Protection Department), or contact EIPD directly. Attach your narrative plus the evidence from Step 0 — proof of payments, chats, website links, the names of recruiters, the returns promised, and proof that withdrawals were refused or extra fees demanded.
What the SEC can do: issue Cease and Desist Orders, impose administrative sanctions, publish advisories warning the public, and recommend criminal prosecution to the Department of Justice.
What the SEC cannot do: get your money back for you. The SEC is a regulator and enforcement body, not a recovery service. Understanding this now will save you from the recovery scams that target people at exactly this stage.
Step 3: Report to NBI or PNP-ACG (for the criminal side)
Both accept cybercrime complaints; you don’t need to file with both.
NBI Cybercrime Division accepts e-complaints online at nbi.gov.ph/ccd-complaints. You’ll fill in your details, describe what happened, state the estimated loss, and upload evidence files.
PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group accepts complaints through its offices and channels.
For either, prepare a written account of what happened plus your evidence, and be ready to execute a sworn affidavit-complaint. A clear, chronological narrative with dates and amounts is far more useful than a folder of unlabelled screenshots.
Step 4: Report the accounts and pages
Separately from the official channels, report the Facebook page, TikTok account, Telegram group, or website to the platform itself. This rarely helps you, but it shortens the operation’s life and protects the next person.
A warning about what happens next
Once you’ve filed, expect to be contacted by people offering to recover your funds. Some will claim to be lawyers, blockchain investigators, or even to be working with a regulator.
Regulators do not charge fees to recover your money, and they do not contact victims out of the blue asking for payment. Victim lists circulate among fraud operations, and a person who has already lost money once is considered a high-value target for a second attempt. Treat every unsolicited recovery offer as fraudulent until proven otherwise — and be aware that “proof” is easy to fake.
Managing expectations honestly
Most cross-border investment fraud money is not recovered. That’s not a reason to skip reporting — advisories and cease-and-desist orders come from complaints, and they stop people from becoming the next victim — but you should file with realistic expectations rather than hope that will be exploited later.
The most useful thing you can do afterwards is the least satisfying one: verify licences before funding, and treat any refusal to process a withdrawal as the emergency it is.
Educational content only. This is not legal advice. Agency procedures and contact channels change — verify current details on each agency’s official website before filing.
Sources: SEC Philippines, NBI Cybercrime Division, PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group