Recovering Stolen Funds
The difficulty of recovering money from a scammer depends on how they were paid. Did the scammer ask you to send them gift cards or cryptocurrency? If so, then unfortunately there is a very high likelihood that the money cannot be recovered. Regardless, you can still use the instructions here to. For cryptocurrency, you will need to contact the broker or service that you used to purchase and send the cryptocurrency to the scammer.
The Federal Trade Commission has again prepared , which should be referenced during the recovery process.
The three credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) have also prepared steps on how to place freezes and alerts on your credit. You can read here, here, and here.
If the transaction occurred with your credit, debit, or ATM card, you will need to contact your bank. Disputing charges on a credit card is generally more reliable than doing so on a debit or ATM card, but you can still find here. For credit cards, you can use the here.
You can also attempt to recover money wired to the scammer. However, it is typically not possible to recovery wired money. We still recommend that you read the here. It is also advisable to contact your bank as soon as possible.
If the money was sent to the scammer through a money transfer app, such as PayPal or Zelle, you will need to contact that company. Each company will have a different set of steps that you will need to take, so we recommend contacting their customer support team for guidance.