Someone says they can get my scammed money back — is that real?

Being scammed once puts you on a list. Details of victims are traded, and a second approach follows — sometimes within days, sometimes a year later. It is often more sophisticated than the original, because the caller already knows the amount, the date and the platform involved, which is precisely what makes them sound official.

Safety

Step by step

1. Notice the direction of contact.They found you. Neither the police, nor Action Fraud, nor your bank, nor the Financial Ombudsman rings people out of the blue offering to retrieve money for a fee. That single fact ends almost every one of these calls.
2. Refuse every kind of fee.Legal costs, a release fee, an anti-money-laundering charge, tax on the recovered sum, a bond, a deposit to open a case. All invented. In a genuine process you never pay to receive your own money.
3. Verify anyone claiming to be official, independently.If someone says they are from your bank, the police, the FCA or the Ombudsman, hang up and ring the organisation on a number you find yourself. For a bank, that is the number on your card, or 159.
4. Be sceptical of firms that claim to trace cryptocurrency.A whole industry has grown around promising to recover crypto losses. Some of it is fraudulent outright; much of the rest charges substantial fees for work that rarely recovers anything. Never pay a percentage up front.
5. Check the FCA register before dealing with any firm about money.Search the firm's name on the register, and contact them using the details on the register rather than the ones you were given. Cloned firms — real names, wrong contact details — are the hardest version.
6. Use the free routes instead.Your bank's fraud team first. If they refuse, complain to the bank formally, then take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free to you. For card payments, ask about chargeback and Section 75.
7. Report the second approach as well.It is a separate offence, and reporting it helps establish the pattern. Action Fraud, or Police Scotland on 101 in Scotland.

Tips

• The most convincing version claims a court case has already succeeded and your share is waiting, needing only a fee to release it. There is no such process.
• Fake reviews and testimonial sites are built for these operations. A site full of glowing recovery stories is part of the setup rather than evidence about it.
• If you are dealing with a genuine claim through your bank or the Ombudsman, expect it to be slow and paperwork-driven. Speed and enthusiasm are warning signs here, not good service.

Common mistakes

• Believing them because they know the details of the first scam — Victim data is sold, and in many cases the second call comes from the same organisation. Knowing what happened is the least surprising thing about it.
• Paying a small fee because the sum at stake is large — That is the entire arithmetic the fraud relies on. The fee is followed by another fee.

Questions people ask