Sweden's routes in 2026: report the crime to the police on 114 14 or at polisen.se (112 in an emergency), and tell your bank the same hour. Check and report investment fraud through Finansinspektionen (FI), the Financial Supervisory Authority, which publishes investor warnings about unlicensed firms. Check svårlurad.se — the joint police-and-bank awareness service — for the live scam circulating. Escalate a bank's refusal — free — to Allmänna reklamationsnämnden (ARN), the consumer-disputes board, and get consumer guidance from Hallå konsument (Konsumentverket). On refunds: under the Payment Services Act (implementing the EU Payment Services Directive), your bank must refund an unauthorised payment with your liability limited unless you were grossly negligent — but money you were deceived into authorising yourself, including by BankID or Swish, is generally not refundable, because Sweden has no UK-style mandatory-reimbursement rule.
If you have been scammed in Sweden, two things matter most in the first 24 hours: stopping any further loss and creating a record while the evidence still exists. Everything downstream — which body, which form, which refund argument — depends on getting those two right. The complication is that Sweden has no single place to report and no automatic refund for a transfer you authorised, so the order below is built to be the fastest path through a system with several separate doors.
If you are reading this with a transaction you already regret, skip to if money has already moved. A same-day bank recall is sometimes the only thing that works.
The hard truth first: Sweden refunds the hack, not the con
This matters most, because it sets your expectations correctly before you spend a week chasing the wrong outcome.
Swedish law draws a sharp line between two kinds of loss, through the Payment Services Act (betaltjänstlagen), which implements the EU Payment Services Directive. If a payment was unauthorised — someone used your card or got into your account without permission — your bank must refund it, and your own liability is limited unless you acted with gross negligence.
But if you authorised the payment yourself because you were deceived — you approved it with BankID, or sent the Swish, because a convincing "bank adviser" or "investment platform" told you to — that is legally a valid instruction, and the refund right does not apply. There is no Swedish equivalent of the UK rule that forces banks to reimburse this kind of authorised-push-payment fraud.
The Swedish reporting map — police first, then the specialist
Sweden has no single consumer "report a scam" portal of the kind the US (IC3) or the UK (Report Fraud) run, but the police are the obvious front door.
The full Swedish reporting directory, by scam type
Different scams route to different specialists. Using the right one matters more than reporting to all of them.
If money has already moved — the first 24 hours
Speed is the whole game, especially for a transfer you authorised, where there is no automatic refund to fall back on. This is the maximum-recovery order:
The Swedish numbers — and why so few are reported
Sweden's fraud figures are large and growing, and the reporting gap is part of the story. A few figures, all from named sources:
The habits that keep you out of the reporting machinery entirely
Reporting is downstream. Prevention is upstream, and three habits stop most Swedish scams cold:
If you are unsure whether something is a scam before any money moves, the fastest second opinion is the Scam Checker on this site, or our free case review. Both are read by a human and answered within 24 hours.
One rule, end to end
If you take one habit from this piece, take this: any unsolicited call, text, or message that pressures you to send a Swish, move money, or confirm a BankID is a scam until you have hung up and verified it by contacting the institution on a number you already trust. In a country with no automatic refund for a transfer you authorised, that one pause is worth more than the entire reporting machinery downstream of it.
In Sweden and not sure where to start? Let's look at it together.
Describe the message, the call, the transaction. A real expert reviews every case and replies within 24 hours. Free, confidential, no pressure.
Common questions about reporting a scam in Sweden
Is there one place to report all scams in Sweden?
No single portal, but the route is clear. The criminal report goes to the police (Polisen): call 114 14 (112 in an emergency, or while money is still moving), report online at polisen.se, or go to a station. Tell your bank in the same hour — that is what gives a recall a chance. For investment fraud, also alert Finansinspektionen (the Financial Supervisory Authority) so it can warn others, and check its investor warnings before you pay. Svårlurad.se, a joint police-and-bank awareness campaign, publishes the live scams circulating in Sweden. The practical order: tell your bank, file the police report, then add the specialist body that matches the scam.
Will my Swedish bank refund money I lost to a scam?
It depends on one distinction the whole EU uses. Sweden implements the EU Payment Services Directive through the Payment Services Act (betaltjänstlagen). If the payment was unauthorised — someone used your card or got into your account without permission — your bank must refund it, and your own liability is limited unless you acted with gross negligence. But if you authorised the payment yourself because you were deceived — you approved it with BankID or sent the Swish because a convincing 'bank adviser' told you to — that is a valid instruction, and there is no Swedish equivalent of the UK rule forcing banks to reimburse this kind of authorised-push-payment fraud. So Swedish banks refund the hack, not the con. Report it fast anyway: speed is what gives a recall a chance.
How do I report a fake online shop, phishing message, or scam call in Sweden?
If money or card details were involved, tell your bank immediately so it can watch the account and attempt a recall, then file the report with the police on 114 14 or at polisen.se. Check svårlurad.se for the live campaign, and if a message impersonated your bank, the bank's fraud team will want the details. The Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) has its own channel for tax-related impersonation. If you only spotted a scam without losing anything, reporting it still feeds the national picture — and only about one in five Swedish victims report at all, which is part of why the problem keeps growing.
How do I check whether an investment platform is legitimate in Sweden?
Use Finansinspektionen (FI), the Financial Supervisory Authority of Sweden. Before sending money, check that the firm is authorised and search FI's investor warnings — the alerts it publishes about unlicensed firms, clones and bogus platforms. FI cannot recover your money, but its warnings are how a large share of fake-broker and bogus-crypto operations get publicly flagged. Investment fraud is among the costliest categories in Sweden, and the dominant pattern is a 'guaranteed return' platform promoted through social-media ads or a stranger who moves the conversation onto WhatsApp or Telegram.
Where can a scam victim in Sweden escalate or get help?
If your bank refuses to refund a payment you believe was unauthorised, you can take the dispute — free of charge — to Allmänna reklamationsnämnden (ARN), the National Board for Consumer Disputes, which issues recommendations on consumer complaints including against banks. For consumer rights and guidance more broadly, Hallå konsument (run by the Swedish Consumer Agency, Konsumentverket) is the place to start. None of these — your bank, the police, FI, or ARN — will ever charge an upfront fee to 'recover' your money. Anyone who does is running the second scam.
Sources & further reading
Every figure in this piece is drawn from these authorities. Click any of them to verify.