The routes money can actually come back through

A forced reversal run through the card scheme rather than the merchant. The acquirer takes the money back and the merchant has to defend the transaction. If you paid a scam platform by card, this is the strongest position available to you.

Applies when

You paid the platform directly by credit or debit card.

Deadline

Commonly around 120 days, counted from the transaction or from the date a promised service failed. Some reason codes reach considerably further. Confirm the exact date with your issuer.

Realistic outlook

Strong

Your bank asks the receiving bank to return the funds. The receiving bank generally returns only what is still sitting in the account, which is why hours matter — these accounts are typically emptied the same day through a chain of intermediaries.

Applies when

You sent a bank transfer, and it was recent.

Deadline

Effectively days. Report it the moment you realise.

Realistic outlook

Time-critical

Several jurisdictions now require banks to reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud, subject to conditions and caps. Where a bank refuses, the decision usually rests on contestable judgements about whether it met its duty to warn and protect you — which is exactly why a refusal is worth challenging rather than accepting.

Applies when

A bank transfer, especially where your bank showed only a generic warning or questioned the payment and released it anyway.

Deadline

Varies by scheme, and complaint deadlines run from the bank's final response.

Realistic outlook

Often worth pursuing after a refusal

A confirmed blockchain transaction cannot be reversed by anyone. What can be done is follow the funds, hop by hop, to the point they reach a service with compliance obligations — an exchange, a custodian, a processor — and pursue that service. That is the pressure point in the whole chain.

Applies when

You sent crypto, and you have the transaction hash.

Deadline

Freezing is often a matter of hours. Tracing itself does not expire, and dormant funds sometimes move years later.

Realistic outlook

Depends entirely on where the funds landed

Individual losses look small in isolation; a hundred reports naming the same platform is what turns it into an investigation. Investigations produce seizures, and seizures produce distributions. A report reference is also a practical precondition — most exchanges will not release frozen funds without one.

Applies when

Every case, in parallel with everything else.

Deadline

None, but earlier is better while identifiers are still live.

Realistic outlook

Unlocks other routes more than it recovers directly

When a large scheme collapses and authorities move in, a receiver gathers what is left and a claims process opens. Expect a fraction rather than the whole, expect it to take years — and expect it to be the only thing still working on a case everyone had written off.

Applies when

The operation that took your money has been charged, seized or put into receivership.

Deadline

A hard bar date. Miss it and the claim is generally gone.

Realistic outlook

Slow, partial, and real