Scam Recovery Basics: What to Do After You've Been Scammed

Realizing you’ve been scammed is a gut punch. People describe the same mix of panic, anger, and embarrassment — and scammers count on those feelings to keep you quiet or, worse, to hit you a second time. Here is the honest starting point: recovering scammed money is often impossible, and anyone who promises otherwise is lying to you. What you can control is how much more you lose from here. Fast action limits the damage, protects your accounts and identity, and creates the records that give any recovery attempt its best realistic chance.

The first hour: stop the loss

Before reports, before research, cut off the scammer’s access to more of your money and information.

1. Stop all contact with the scammer. Don’t reply, don’t negotiate, don’t send “one last payment” to unlock a refund. Every additional message is another chance for them to extract money or information.
2. Call the company that moved the money. Your bank, card issuer, payment app, gift card company, or crypto exchange — whichever one handled the payment. Ask them to flag the transaction as fraud and tell you what dispute or reversal options exist. Write down the case number.
3. Change passwords on any account the scammer touched. Start with your email, because email controls password resets for everything else. Turn on two-factor authentication while you’re in there.
4. If you shared remote access to your device — through AnyDesk, TeamViewer, or a “support” tool — disconnect from the internet, uninstall the software, and change your passwords from a different device.

Your payment method decides your options

There is no single refund process for scams. What happens next depends almost entirely on how the money left your hands.

Credit cards give you the strongest position. Card networks have formal dispute processes, and you can ask your issuer to reverse a fraudulent charge. Call the number on the back of your card, say the charge was fraudulent, and follow up in writing.

Debit cards and bank transfers also have dispute processes, but the rules and time limits are tighter than for credit cards, and money that has already left your account is harder to claw back. Report unauthorized activity to your bank immediately — the clock is running.

Peer-to-peer payment apps (Zelle, Venmo, Cash App) sit in a gray zone. If someone hacked your account and sent money, that’s unauthorized and the app or linked bank should have a fraud process. If the scammer tricked you into sending the payment yourself, refunds are far less certain — but report it anyway, both in the app and to any linked bank.

Wire transfers can occasionally be recalled if you act within hours. Call the sending bank or wire service the moment you realize what happened and ask for a recall or a fraud hold on the receiving end.

Gift cards are a scammer favorite precisely because they work like cash. Call the card issuer (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.), give them the card numbers and receipts, and ask whether any balance can be frozen. Sometimes a card hasn’t been fully drained yet.

Cryptocurrency transactions cannot be reversed. Report the theft to the exchange you used — they can sometimes freeze funds that land in accounts on their own platform — but treat the money as gone and be doubly suspicious of anyone offering “crypto tracing” services.

Save everything before you delete anything

The urge to block the scammer and erase the whole episode is natural. Resist it until you’ve preserved the evidence, because your bank, the FTC, the FBI, and any lawyer you talk to will all ask for documentation.

• Screenshots of texts, emails, chat threads, social media profiles, and websites
• Payment records: receipts, transaction IDs, statements, wire confirmations, gift card numbers, crypto wallet addresses
• The scammer’s contact details: phone numbers, email addresses, usernames, URLs
• A simple written timeline — when contact started, what was promised, what you paid and when, and how you discovered the scam
• Every case number, claim number, and report number you receive along the way

Keep it all in one folder. Don’t post any of it publicly; scammers monitor victim posts to select targets for the follow-up scams described below.

Where to report the scam

Reporting won’t get your money back by itself, but it creates official records that support your bank disputes, helps law enforcement connect your case to larger operations, and protects other people.

• ReportFraud.ftc.gov is the FTC’s central intake for fraud, scams, and dishonest business practices. Reports go into a database used by thousands of law enforcement agencies.
• IC3.gov is the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. If any part of the scam happened online — email, social media, a website, a payment app — file there too, as soon as possible.
• Local police matter if you were threatened, if the scammer is local, or if your bank or insurer asks for a police report number.
• The platform where it happened — the marketplace, dating app, or social network — so the scammer’s account gets taken down before it reaches the next person.

If your personal information was exposed

Money is only half the risk. If the scammer got your Social Security number, driver’s license, bank login, or even just your date of birth and address, you’re now exposed to identity theft — new accounts opened in your name, tax refunds stolen, debts you never incurred.

Go to IdentityTheft.gov, the federal government’s identity theft recovery site. It walks you through your specific situation, generates a personal recovery plan, and produces an official FTC identity theft report you can use with banks and credit bureaus. Then consider freezing your credit — it’s free at all three bureaus and blocks new accounts from being opened in your name. Our identity theft guide covers fraud alerts, freezes, credit disputes, and how to check your credit reports for accounts you don’t recognize.

The second scam: “recovery services”

This is the part of scam recovery that too few guides say plainly, so here it is: after you lose money to a scam, you become a target for a second scam.

Fraud victims’ details circulate on lists. Scammers also watch social media and complaint forums. Days or weeks after your loss, someone contacts you claiming to be a fund-recovery specialist, a crypto-tracing firm, a private investigator, a lawyer, or even an FBI or FTC agent who has “located your money.” All you need to do is pay a processing fee, a tax, or a retainer up front — or hand over your bank login or crypto wallet keys so they can “deposit the recovered funds.”

Every element of that pitch is a lie. Hold on to these rules:

• No one can guarantee recovery of scammed money. Not a lawyer, not an investigator, not a company with a polished website and fake testimonials.
• Real government agencies never charge victims to investigate fraud or return funds, and they don’t ask for payment in gift cards or crypto.
• Legitimate recovery, where it exists, runs through your own bank’s dispute process or law enforcement — not through a stranger who contacted you first.
• Never share passwords, one-time codes, seed phrases, or remote device access with anyone offering to help.

Many of these operations dress themselves up as law firms. Our guide to fake legal services scams explains how to spot a fake lawyer and how to verify a real one before you pay anyone a cent.

An honest word about getting your money back

Some victims do recover money — usually those who paid by credit card, caught a bank transfer within hours, or found a gift card that hadn’t been drained. Many don’t, especially after wires, gift cards, or crypto. Reporting still matters: it protects you legally, feeds investigations, and occasionally leads to restitution when a fraud operation is prosecuted years later. But build your plan around damage containment — secured accounts, frozen credit, documented losses — rather than around the hope of a refund. That mindset is also your best armor against the recovery scammers, whose entire business model depends on your hope.

When to get help

Get real, verified help when the loss is large, when the scammer has your identity documents or account access, when you’re being threatened, or when the scam has tangled you in debts or legal claims that aren’t yours. A licensed attorney can tell you whether you have any realistic claim and handle disputes that go beyond a bank’s standard process. If cost is the barrier, free and low-cost options exist: our guide to finding legal help shows where to look, and our legal aid basics guide explains who qualifies for free civil legal services. Whatever you do, choose your helper — never accept help from someone who chose you.