Almost every mechanism that can return money to a fraud victim is time-bound. Card scheme chargebacks have filing deadlines. Bank recall requests are dramatically more effective before funds are moved onward. Exchanges can sometimes freeze an account, but only while the balance is still there. None of these are guarantees, and honest advice has to say so — but all of them degrade with delay, which makes sequencing the one thing genuinely within your control.

Hour 0-1: stop the outflow

  • Make no further payments of any kind, including fees described as necessary to release your balance. This is the most common way a loss doubles.
  • If you shared card or account details, contact your bank immediately and ask them to block the card and flag the account for fraud.
  • If you installed any remote-access software at anyone's request (AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and similar), disconnect the device from the internet and treat every account accessed from it as compromised.
  • Change passwords for banking and email from a different, clean device — email first, because it is the reset path for everything else.

Hour 1-6: preserve evidence before it disappears

Fraudulent operators routinely delete accounts and chat histories once a victim becomes uncooperative. Capture everything before that happens. Screenshots are better than memory, and full-page captures are better than crops.

  • The platform dashboard showing your balance, account name, and any transaction history.
  • The complete message history, including the earliest non-financial conversation. Export it if the app allows it.
  • Every payment record: bank references, card statements, crypto transaction hashes, and the exact destination addresses or account details.
  • The website URL, any app store listing, the company name and registration or licence number claimed, and the names and phone numbers of anyone you dealt with.

Hour 6-24: open the financial channels

Which route applies depends entirely on how the money left you, and the difference matters more than anything else about your case.

  • Card payment: request a chargeback through your issuer. State clearly that the transaction was fraudulently induced. Deadlines vary by scheme and issuer but are finite — ask what yours is on the call.
  • Bank transfer: ask your bank to attempt a recall and to contact the beneficiary bank. Ask explicitly whether your jurisdiction has a reimbursement scheme for authorised push-payment fraud, and whether your case qualifies.
  • Cryptocurrency: if funds went to an address associated with an exchange, report it to that exchange with the transaction hash. Exchanges can sometimes freeze balances that have not yet been withdrawn. This is the narrowest window of all.

Day 1-3: file the official reports

Reports rarely produce individual recovery on their own, and it is dishonest to suggest otherwise. They matter for two concrete reasons: they create the documented record that banks, insurers, and schemes ask for, and aggregated reports are what actually drives takedowns and enforcement against the operation.

  • United States: the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, plus reportfraud.ftc.gov.
  • United Kingdom: Action Fraud, or Police Scotland if you are in Scotland.
  • Australia: Scamwatch, operated by the ACCC. New Zealand: CERT NZ.
  • Anywhere: your local police force, for a report reference number — banks and insurers frequently ask for one.

What to be sceptical of next

Within days of a loss becoming visible, a second wave often arrives: accounts claiming they can recover your funds for an upfront fee, sometimes impersonating the very agencies you just reported to. Recovery fraud specifically targets people who have already lost money, because that list is a known-good list of vulnerable targets. No legitimate agency charges an advance fee to return your own money, and nobody honest can promise a recovery percentage before examining the case.

Setting an honest expectation

Recovery outcomes vary enormously by payment method and elapsed time. Card payments have the strongest structural protection. Bank transfers depend heavily on jurisdiction and the receiving bank. Cryptocurrency sent directly to a private wallet is the hardest of all, and frequently unrecoverable. Acting quickly meaningfully improves the odds in every one of those categories, but it does not make any of them certain.