Have you heard of econsumer.gov?
In 2001 the site launched with a goal to gather and share consumer complaints about international scams. It recently got an upgrade.
Now data about the complaints is available to the public as well as government agencies.
Who is collecting the data?
The Federal Trade Commission leads the project as part of the International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network).
The mission of the organization is to gather and share cross-border fraud complaints. This allows consumer protection agencies around the globe to detect patterns and collaborate.
The website has 2 functions.
1st is through this site consumers from around the world can report fraud. 
Fraud complaints include everything from online shopping schemes to telemarketing and imposter scams.
The 2nd purpose is sharing information with law enforcement and consumer protection agencies so they can access the consumer complaint data and other investigative details.
According to the FTC, econsumer.gov had 40,432 reports of international scams in 2019. The majority of those were online shopping scams. More than $151 million was reported lost. 
The FTC said their Consumer Sentinel database had 91,560 people report losses in 2019. Those users lost more than $276.5 million to scams outside the US.
If you’re targeted by a scam based outside the U.S. report it at: https://econsumer.gov/en/FileAComplaint. If you’re the target of a US-based scam report it to the FTC: https://ftc.gov/complaint .
Action is necessary to stop these scammers. The first step is letting law enforcement and consumer protection agencies know what they’re up to.
Next week: Which VPN should you use?