Speed matters more than anything else in this process. Most recovery routes are tied to a deadline that starts running from the date of the payment, and some banks can still stop a transfer that has not yet been drawn down. Work through this list in order. Do not wait until you have gathered everything before you start step 1.
1. Stop any further payments
If you have a pending transfer, standing order or scheduled card payment going to the same place, cancel it in your banking app now. If you gave anyone remote access to your computer, disconnect that machine from the internet before you do anything else on it.
2. Call your bank or card issuer
Use the number printed on your card or shown in your banking app, never a number somebody sent you. Say these words: "I have been the victim of a scam and I want to report a fraudulent payment." That phrasing matters, because it routes you to the fraud team rather than general customer service.
Ask for three things and write down the answers:
- A fraud reference number for the report.
- Whether the payment can be recalled or charged back, and the exact deadline for that.
- Whether your card or account needs to be blocked and reissued.
3. Freeze the receiving side, if you can identify it
If your funds went to a deposit address at a named crypto exchange, that exchange's compliance team can sometimes freeze the balance while they investigate. This only works while the funds are still sitting there, which is frequently a matter of hours. Contact them directly and quote the transaction hash.
4. Report it officially
An official report is not a formality. Banks, exchanges and payment processors routinely ask for a police or national fraud reference before they will act, and some reimbursement schemes require one. Report to your national fraud body as well as to local police, and keep the reference.
5. Preserve the evidence before it disappears
Scam websites get taken down, chat accounts get deleted and numbers get abandoned, often within days. Screenshot everything while it still exists: the website, your account balance page, every message thread, every email including its headers, every payment confirmation. Capture full screens with the address bar and the clock visible rather than cropped images.
6. Then file your claim with us
Once the steps above are underway, file your claim. You do not need to have finished steps 2 to 5 first — the form asks what you have already done, and we work with whatever you have.
What not to do
- Do not pay anything else to the same people. Not a "tax", "release fee", "insurance premium", "gas fee", "anti-money-laundering deposit" or "verification payment". No such payment exists that unlocks a withdrawal. This is the single most common way victims double their losses.
- Do not tell them you have reported it. Advance warning usually means the accounts are emptied and the site is pulled before anyone can act.
- Do not accept help from anyone who contacts you in the days and weeks afterwards, however credible they sound. Victim lists circulate, and the second approach is very often another scam. See recovery scams.
- Do not delete the conversation, however much you want to. It is evidence.