Discovering you have been scammed is distressing but the actions you take in the first hours and days are the single biggest factor in whether you get your money back. This step-by-step guide covers what to do immediately, and the specific recovery route for each payment method: card, bank transfer, and cryptocurrency.
Speed is everything. Many recovery rights (chargebacks, bank recalls) have tight deadlines, and scammers move money fast. Act today, not tomorrow.
Step 1: Stop all contact and stop paying
Cut off the scammer. Critically, never pay any “fee,” “tax,” “commission,” or “unlock” charge to release your funds this is always part of the scam, designed to extract more money. No legitimate process requires you to pay to get your own money back.
Step 2: Preserve every piece of evidence
Before anything gets deleted, save:
- Bank statements and exact transaction dates and amounts;
- Cryptocurrency transaction IDs (TXIDs) and wallet addresses;
- The platform or website URL (and screenshots of it);
- All messages, emails, and call logs with the scammer;
- Any “account dashboard” showing your supposed balance.
Step 3: Contact your bank the same day
If a bank or card was involved, call your bank's fraud team immediately. Ask them to freeze further payments and to begin the appropriate dispute (see the payment-method sections below). Same-day reporting materially improves your odds.
Step 4: Report the fraud
Report to your national fraud body and keep the reference number:
- UK: Action Fraud
- US: the FBI's IC3
- EU: your national police cybercrime unit
Step 5: Use the right recovery route for how you paid
If you paid by debit or credit card
Request a chargeback through your bank (typically within 120 days). If you used a UK credit card for a purchase over £100, also raise a Section 75 claim, which makes the card provider jointly liable. See our full guide: what is a chargeback and can it get your money back?
If you paid by bank transfer
Ask your bank for an immediate recall and raise an Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud claim. Under the UK's PSR 2024 mandatory reimbursement rules, banks must assess APP fraud claims and reimburse eligible victims in most cases. Recall requests are most effective in the first few hours.
If you paid in cryptocurrency
Crypto can't be charged back, but it can be traced. Blockchain forensics can follow the funds and often identify the exchange that received them; a legal freeze request to that exchange, backed by a forensic report, is the main recovery route. Read can I recover my crypto? and how blockchain forensics traces stolen crypto.
What if the platform won't let you withdraw?
If you're dealing with a fake broker or trading site that keeps blocking your withdrawal or demanding more fees, that is a specific and common scam pattern with its own playbook see fake trading platform won't let you withdraw?
Avoid recovery scams. No legitimate firm guarantees results or asks for large upfront payments to “release” your funds. If someone contacts you first promising recovery, it's almost certainly a second scam. Learn how to spot a recovery scam.