If a synthetic image, video, or voice of you is being used to impersonate you or commit fraud, act in this order: preserve evidence, secure affected accounts and money, report identity theft to the FTC, protect your credit, file an IC3 complaint for internet-enabled financial fraud, and report the content to the platform. Use a different, specialized process for qualifying nonconsensual intimate deepfakes. The agency routes and removal rules below are United States-specific.
First, identify what happened
A deepfake can imitate your face, body, or voice without being a real recording of you. The existence of a fake does not automatically mean identity theft. It becomes an identity-fraud matter when someone uses the impersonation to obtain money, open an account, make purchases, deceive customers, or induce another person to send funds. A fake post can also cause reputational harm without involving a financial account.
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You do not need to prove that a file is synthetic before reporting suspected fraud. Save the material and describe what you know, what you do not know, and how the impersonation was used. The steps below are designed for people in the United States; other countries have different credit bureaus, police procedures, privacy laws, and reporting portals.
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Do these things before the post or account disappears
Preserve the evidence
Capture screenshots showing the entire post, profile or account name, visible date and time, messages, payment instructions, telephone numbers, email addresses, and any warning or error shown by the service. Copy the exact page URL and, where possible, save the original file without editing it. Record who contacted you, what they claimed, and what a victim was asked to do.
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Keep transaction records, bank notices, invoices, shipping information, and confirmation emails. If another person was approached by the impersonator, ask that person to preserve their messages and payment records rather than forwarding only a cropped screenshot. Store copies in a location that the suspected attacker cannot alter.
Start a dated contact log. For every bank, lender, business, platform, police department, or agency, note the date, telephone number or web form used, representative or case number, documents submitted, and promised follow-up. This practical recordkeeping is not a substitute for an official report, but it prevents details from being lost when several organizations are involved.
Do not engage the impersonator
Do not send additional identification, account credentials, one-time codes, or money to prove that you are the real person. Replies can reveal that your account is active and may expose more information. Preserve the conversation first, then use the service’s reporting tools.
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Secure money, accounts, and credentials
Contact every affected institution through a verified channel
Call the bank, lender, payment service, telecommunications provider, or other business using a number on a statement, the back of a card, or a website you typed yourself. Do not rely on a number in the deepfake, an unsolicited message, or a search advertisement. Ask the institution’s fraud department to secure or close compromised accounts, stop unauthorized transfers, investigate fraudulent charges, and explain how to dispute accounts opened in your name.
Change passwords and PINs for affected accounts. Change any other account that reused the same password, beginning with your email account because it can be used to reset other services. Sign out of unknown sessions, replace recovery email addresses or telephone numbers that you do not recognize, and enable multifactor authentication where available.
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Tell the financial institution exactly when the transfer, charge, withdrawal, or account opening occurred. Ask whether a transfer recall, payment reversal, or account freeze is still possible. Keep the institution’s case number and written instructions. A report does not guarantee that money will be recovered, so speed and complete transaction details matter.
Report the identity theft to the FTC
Use IdentityTheft.gov to report the identity-theft portion of the incident. The service creates an FTC Identity Theft Report and a recovery plan based on the information you provide. The plan lists follow-up actions and can help you track what remains to be done.
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Protect and check your credit
Place a free one-year fraud alert
The FTC describes a free, one-year fraud alert for consumers who suspect identity theft. Contact any one of the three nationwide credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. The bureau you contact must notify the other two, so you do not have to submit three separate alert requests.
A fraud alert tells prospective creditors to take reasonable steps to verify that an applicant is really you. It does not block every application and it does not replace reviewing your reports.
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Review all three reports
Obtain your free reports through AnnualCreditReport.com, the federally authorized source identified in the FTC guidance. Look for unfamiliar credit inquiries, accounts, addresses, collection entries, phone numbers, and transactions. A deepfake scam may be only the visible part of an account-opening scheme.
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File an IC3 complaint for internet-enabled financial fraud
If the deepfake was used through a website, social network, email, messaging service, cryptocurrency platform, or another online channel to solicit money or financial information, submit a complaint at IC3.gov, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. IC3 receives complaints about cyber-enabled fraud and shares reports with law-enforcement partners.
Provide the impersonator’s account and page URLs, dates and times, payment instructions, wallet or account details, email addresses, telephone numbers, losses, and the FTC report number if you have one. Upload or retain evidence as the form permits. IC3 is an additional route; it does not replace the FTC identity-theft report, your bank’s fraud process, or the platform report.
Report the impersonation to the platform
Use the service’s in-product report or abuse form for impersonation, fraud, or account compromise. Submit the exact URL, the account name, a concise explanation of how the content uses your identity, and evidence showing why it is fraudulent. Save the confirmation page, email, ticket number, and the date you submitted it.
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Ordinary impersonation reports do not have one universal legal takedown deadline. A platform may remove content, restrict an account, request more information, or decline to act under its own rules. Do not promise yourself or another victim that a normal impersonation report will be resolved within a particular number of hours.
Know when the 48-hour intimate-image process applies
The Take It Down Act covers certain nonconsensual intimate images, including realistic fake depictions. For a valid request involving qualifying content on a covered platform, the platform must remove the reported material and known identical copies within 48 hours. This is a specific statutory process, not a general deadline for every deepfake.
Use this route only when the material is an intimate image covered by the law and the service is a covered platform. A fake voice asking for money, a fabricated business video, or an ordinary face-swap does not automatically qualify. Follow the platform’s instructions for submitting a request and preserve the confirmation. If you are unsure whether the content meets the definition, describe the facts accurately and ask the platform how its covered-content process applies; do not mislabel unrelated material.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose the right report for the problem
| Problem | Primary route | What it does | What it does not guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Someone used your identity to open an account or commit identity theft | IdentityTheft.gov | Creates an FTC Identity Theft Report and personalized recovery plan | Automatic removal of online content or recovery of money |
| Online fraud used a deepfake to solicit funds or financial data | IC3.gov | Collects a cyber-enabled-fraud complaint for sharing with law-enforcement partners | An individual investigation, arrest, or reimbursement |
| Impersonation content on a social or video platform | The platform’s impersonation or fraud form | Routes the content to the service’s moderation process | A universal takedown deadline |
| Qualifying nonconsensual intimate deepfake on a covered platform | The platform’s Take It Down Act process | Requires removal of the content and known identical copies within 48 hours after a valid request | Coverage for every deepfake or every website |
| Local documentation or an in-person investigation | Local police department | Creates a local report and may support disputes with institutions | Guaranteed prosecution or content removal |
Consider a local police report
A police report can be useful when an account was opened in your name, money was stolen, threats were made, or a business requires local documentation. The FTC recovery guidance advises bringing your FTC Identity Theft Report, a government photo ID, proof of address, and other evidence. Ask for a copy of the report and record the report number. Policies differ by department, so call first if you need to know whether an appointment or specific form is required.
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Victims are often targeted again because a fraudster now knows that the incident is urgent. On July 20, 2026, the FBI warned that scammers were using AI-generated videos impersonating FBI personnel and spoofed IC3 websites to solicit personal information. Type IC3.gov directly or use a bookmark you created yourself.
Do not submit identity documents, bank details, passwords, or recovery fees through a link sent by an unsolicited social-media contact claiming to be an IC3, FBI, police, bank, or “recovery” agent. Government agencies and legitimate institutions will not require you to pay an unknown intermediary to file the reports described above. If a supposed helper asks for a one-time code or remote access to your device, stop communicating and preserve the message as additional evidence.
Reduce future exposure without expecting a perfect defense
A December 3, 2024 FBI IC3 warning described criminals using generative AI for fraudulent identity documents and impersonation schemes. Limiting publicly available photos, videos, and voice recordings can reduce the material available for cloning. Review privacy settings, remove unnecessary public contact details, and ask organizations that publish your recordings whether older material can be restricted.
These measures reduce exposure; they cannot guarantee that a deepfake will not be made. Continue using unique passwords, multifactor authentication, transaction alerts, and account notifications so an impersonation attempt is less likely to become an account takeover or financial loss.
What to keep in your case file
- A dated incident timeline from the first discovery through every report and response.
- Original URLs, account names, screenshots, downloaded files, messages, and contact details.
- Bank, lender, payment, and merchant case numbers, statements, disputes, and transaction records.
- Your FTC Identity Theft Report and recovery plan.
- IC3 and platform submission confirmations.
- Credit reports, fraud-alert confirmation, disputes, and bureau responses.
- Any local police report, officer or department contact, and report number.
Keep the file organized and update it after each call or submission. When an institution asks what happened, provide a short factual chronology and attach the relevant record rather than sending an unedited mass of screenshots.
When the incident crosses several categories
Many cases require more than one route. For example, a fake CEO video that persuades an employee to wire money belongs in the company’s bank-fraud process, an FTC identity-theft report if personal accounts or identity credentials were used, an IC3 complaint because the fraud was online, and a platform report if the video remains hosted there. A fabricated dating or family-member voice message that asks for a transfer should be handled the same way: preserve the message, verify the request through a known channel, contact the financial institution, and report the online fraud.
If no account, payment, or personal credential was involved, you can still preserve evidence and report the impersonation to the platform. The FTC and IC3 routes become most relevant when identity theft or internet-enabled financial fraud actually occurred. Do not claim a financial loss that has not happened, but do record the attempted solicitation and the people or organizations contacted.
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