If you sent a bank transfer, you authorised the payment. There is no automatic reversal right the way there is with a card. Two things can still work.
1. A recall request
Your bank contacts the receiving bank and asks for the funds back. The receiving bank will usually only return what is still sitting in the account. This is why hours matter: receiving accounts in these schemes are typically emptied or forwarded on very quickly, often within the same day, through a chain of intermediary accounts.
Call your bank and ask explicitly for a recall or indemnity claim. Get the reference.
2. A reimbursement scheme
Several jurisdictions now require banks to reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud, subject to conditions and caps. Where such a scheme applies, the decision usually rests on whether the bank met its own duty to warn and protect you, and on whether you acted with gross negligence. Those are contestable judgements, not mechanical rules — which is exactly why a refusal is worth challenging rather than accepting.
The schemes differ substantially between countries, including on the cap, the excess, and the deadline to claim. Tell us where your bank is and we will tell you what applies.
If your bank refuses
A first refusal is common and is not the end. The usual escalation is:
- A formal complaint to the bank, in writing, on the specific grounds they gave.
- The bank's final response, which you need in writing before the next step.
- An ombudsman or dispute-resolution body, which is free to you in most countries and is not bound by the bank's view. A meaningful proportion of scam refusals are overturned at this stage.
Deadlines apply to each step, typically counted from the final response, so do not let a refusal sit in a drawer.
What helps most
- The exact beneficiary details you paid, so the receiving account can be identified.
- Any warning your bank showed you, and what it said. If the warning was generic where the circumstances called for something specific, that matters.
- Whether the bank questioned the payment and then released it, and what you were told.
- Proof the account was not the business it claimed to be — for example, a beneficiary name that does not match the company you believed you were paying. That mismatch alone has carried cases.