Recovery Scams: Why the Person Offering to Get Your Money Back Is the Second Fraud
Losing money to a broker does not put you back where you started. It puts you on a list — of people who deposit, who trade, and who are now desperate. The message offering to recover your funds is not a coincidence, and it is not help.
Why they know who you are
The details you gave the first operation are an asset. Name, phone, email, deposit size and how much you lost are sold, traded between groups, or simply reused by the same people under a new brand.
That is why the approach arrives so soon after the loss, and why it is so specific. Someone who names the broker, the amount and the month is not demonstrating investigative skill. They are reading your file.
The shapes it takes
- The recovery agent. A "fund recovery specialist" or "chargeback expert" who needs an upfront retainer, legal fee or verification deposit.
- The fake official. Someone claiming to be from a regulator, police unit or the courts, holding your money in an account that a fee will release.
- The lawyer. A firm with a real-looking website, a case reference and an invoice, offering to join a class action that does not exist.
- The blockchain tracer. Common after crypto losses, promising to follow the funds on-chain for a percentage plus costs.
- The second broker. An offer to recover your losses by trading them back on a new platform. It is the original scam with a fresh brand.
The tell that runs through all of them
You are asked to pay before you receive anything.
No regulator charges you to investigate a firm. No police force charges you to file a report. No court requires a fee paid to a private account to release funds. And no legitimate recovery service asks for money upfront to chase a company that has already stopped answering you. A payment request is the entire purpose of the contact.
Watch for the escalation too. One fee becomes a tax, then a clearance charge, then a final release payment. Each one is justified by the money already spent, which is what makes it so effective.
What actually recovers money
The honest answer is that recovery is difficult and the realistic routes are few. They are also free.
Contact your bank or card provider immediately and ask about a chargeback or payment recall — time limits apply and they are shorter than most people expect. If the broker held a licence, file a complaint with its regulator and, where one exists, the financial ombudsman, which has powers a private company does not. Report the fraud to the police in your country and to the regulator whose jurisdiction was claimed. Our withdrawal guide sets out the escalation order in more detail.
If the money went to an unregulated offshore entity by crypto, be realistic. Reporting still matters — it builds the case that gets warnings published and occasionally gets networks shut down — but nobody can promise to retrieve it, and anyone who does is lying.
Protecting yourself now
Assume your contact details are circulating. Do not confirm any account or payment details to an inbound caller, do not install remote-access software for anyone, and treat every unsolicited offer connected to your loss as part of the same operation.
Leaving a factual review of what happened does more good than any paid service. Patterns of complaints are what warn the next person.
Bottom line: never pay a fee to recover money you have already lost — go to your bank, the regulator and the police, all of which cost nothing.