A U.S. IP wasn’t enough
to reach help.
Fifteen official consumer-reporting services. Four connection routes. Two visits each. An evidence-led look at where reporting journeys opened, stopped, or remained unverified.
Disclosure: FreePolicyTools is a Proxy-Seller affiliate and received $10 in research credit. This study reused one purchased US IPv4 endpoint. It is a case study of specific routes, not a provider ranking.
The restriction was sometimes in the route.
The paid proxy returned PROXY_TARGET_FORBIDDEN for all 14 government entry hosts before our client began destination TLS. Control connections to other hostnames received tunnel approval. Those attempts establish a proxy-side restriction on this endpoint and account configuration.
The browser comparison also records website challenges, explicit denials, DNS failures, reporting notices and empty forms. A terms acknowledgement or CAPTCHA gate is kept separate from a visible form; no report was submitted.
A 403 at the proxy is a different event.
Browser → proxy: CONNECT reportfraud.ftc.gov:443
Proxy → browser: HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
X-Proxy-Error-Message: PROXY_TARGET_FORBIDDEN28 refusals across 14 government hostnames and two repeats. Six control attempts to other hostnames received tunnel approval. Inspect the diagnostic →
Two visits, shown separately.
Each cell preserves pass 1 and pass 2. The Kenyan normal connection is contextual, not a matched US residential control. “Form visible” describes the initial form; submission was not tested.
| Service | Normal connection · Kenya | Proton VPN · Boston | Proton VPN · New York | Paid IPv4 proxy · US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FTC ReportFraud | P1 Questionnaire P2 Questionnaire | P1 Questionnaire P2 Questionnaire | P1 Questionnaire P2 Questionnaire | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| FTC IdentityTheft | P1 Questionnaire P2 Questionnaire | P1 Questionnaire P2 Questionnaire | P1 Questionnaire P2 Questionnaire | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| FBI IC3 | P1 Acknowledgement gate P2 Acknowledgement gate | P1 Acknowledgement gate P2 Acknowledgement gate | P1 Acknowledgement gate P2 Acknowledgement gate | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| CFPB | P1 Reporting notice P2 Reporting notice | P1 Reporting notice P2 Reporting notice | P1 Reporting notice P2 Reporting notice | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| FCC | P1 Security challenge P2 Security challenge | P1 Security challenge P2 Security challenge | P1 Security challenge P2 Security challenge | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| California | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Texas | P1 CAPTCHA gate P2 CAPTCHA gate | P1 Network error P2 Network error | P1 CAPTCHA gate P2 CAPTCHA gate | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Florida | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial |
| New York | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Pennsylvania | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Illinois | P1 Guidance only P2 Guidance only | P1 Guidance only P2 Guidance only | P1 Guidance only P2 Guidance only | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Ohio | P1 Network error P2 Network error | P1 Acknowledgement gate P2 Acknowledgement gate | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Georgia | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| North Carolina | P1 P2 | P1 P2 | P1 P2 | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
| Michigan | P1 Explicit denial P2 Explicit denial | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Form visible P2 Form visible | P1 Proxy restriction P2 Proxy restriction |
60/60 service–route pairs had the same endpoint on both visits. Main observations: 2026-10-16T11:26:19.998Z to 2026-10-16T11:55:53.938Z.
Read the comparison with its limits.
One automated Chromium build, one ordinary Kenyan connection, two US Proton exits and one paid proxy cannot describe all users. Geography, DNS, route reputation, sequential timing and automated-browser treatment can all affect outcomes. Proton’s malware-only NetShield setting remained enabled. Longer NC checks exposed questionnaire text inside the child frame but still yielded blank full-page captures. A later viewport check reached a robot challenge. Visible form access remains unverified; the supplemental evidence is shown separately below.
Mandatory acknowledgements were left unchecked. No personal information, incident answers, login credentials or complaints were entered. CAPTCHA challenges were not completed. Read the complete article and interpretation →
The screenshot evidence.
Available pass-one final screens are shown below. The normal-connection Ohio screenshot could not be captured; its error is retained in the observation record. Open an image for its full page, or inspect the timestamped observation. All published main-stage captures and both passes are indexed in screenshots.json.
Focused validation.
Thirteen separate headed-browser checks followed the main experiment. In three longer NC checks, questionnaire text became available inside the SAS frame, but full-page screenshots remained blank in that area; visible embedded-form access therefore remains unverified. An additional normal-connection viewport check later reached a robot challenge, which was left unsolved. Ohio’s original Boston exit again reached its acknowledgement screen, while the original New York exit again returned a request rejection. Texas’s Boston DNS failure persisted with NetShield malware-only, off, then malware-only again at the same verified exit; its root cause remains undetermined. The headed proxy check again failed the FTC tunnel while the publisher HTTPS control loaded. Illinois still exposed guidance and printable resources in the selected journey. These exploratory checks do not replace the frozen main matrix.
