I sent money to a platform or person promising returns
There is one test that settles it in a day, and one rule: never pay a fee to release your own balance.
- Try to withdraw the entire balance All of it, not a portion. A real platform processes it or cites a rule that exists in writing. A fake one produces a fee, a tax, a "verification deposit" or a freeze — and that is your answer, within a day.
- Pay nothing further, whatever the justification Every additional payment is a loss on top of a loss. There is no fee that releases the money, because the fee is the business.
- Check the operator in your country's register Not the website, not the app, not the certificates it displays. The regulator's own list, which you find yourself. Absence is not proof of fraud, but combined with a blocked withdrawal it is enough.
- Preserve everything before you confront anyone Screenshots of the balance and the chat, the site address, the app, every transaction hash and bank reference, names and phone numbers. Accounts and pages disappear within hours of an accusation.
- Report to your bank if any leg went through it A card payment or a transfer sometimes has a recall window measured in days. It is small, and it closes.
- Report to the police and the financial regulator Both free. The regulator's warning list is how the next person avoids it, and the police report is what any later action needs to exist.
If a person is involved, not just a website
Long relationships built for this purpose are the single most expensive fraud in crypto, and the attachment is real even when the person is a script. The long con describes the whole arc, including why family warnings usually backfire and what to ask instead.
What happens next
Within days somebody will offer to recover the money — an investigator, a lawyer, an agency, a compensation programme. Every one of them is the second theft, and lists of people in exactly your position are bought and sold. The second scam explains how they know.
The honest expectation
Where funds reached a regulated exchange quickly, a freeze is occasionally possible. Otherwise recovery is rare, and anyone promising it for a fee is lying. If your funds are gone is written for this moment.
Anyone who contacts you offering to recover this is the next thief
It follows losses within days, sometimes hours, and it copies the names of real firms, regulators and police units. Nobody legitimate finds you first. How the recovery scam works →
Last checked 19 Oct 2026. This page is procedure, not legal advice — what a report achieves depends on where you live.