If you’ve been scammed: the first hour
Anyone can be caught by a scam: they’re built by people who do nothing else all day. If it happens, what you do in the first hour matters far more than how it happened, and there’s no reason to feel ashamed. This lesson gives you the steps in order, where to report, and a warning about the second scam that often follows. It finishes with five minutes of preparation you can do today, so you’ll never have to search for any of it in a panic.
In this lesson
- Know exactly what to do, in order, after paying, clicking or sharing something
- Know where to report a scam, and why it’s worth it
- Recognise the “recovery” scam that targets victims afterwards
You’ll need: your phone and your bank card, for the preparation at the end.
The first hour, in order
- Stop the contact. Hang up, stop replying, and don’t send anything more, even if they threaten you or promise a refund. If you let them onto your computer with a remote-access app, disconnect it from the internet and uninstall that app.
- Call your bank or card company now. Use the number on the back of your card or in your banking app, never one from the scammer. Say it’s fraud and ask them to stop or reverse the payment and block the card. Speed matters: a payment caught early can sometimes be stopped or recalled.
- If you paid another way, contact that company straight away. For a gift card, contact the company that issued it, and keep the card and receipt: some will refund money that hasn’t been spent yet. For a payment app or money transfer service, report it in the app or to the company. Cryptocurrency is very hard to get back, but report it anyway.
- If you shared a password or a code, change that password on the real site (open the app or type the address yourself), starting with your email. Turn on two-step sign-in, as in Lesson 6, and sign out of other devices if the account offers it. If you reused that password anywhere, change it there too.
- If you shared ID details, such as a Social Security number, passport or date of birth with your address: in the US, IdentityTheft.gov builds you a recovery plan, and a credit freeze with each of the three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) is free and stops new accounts being opened in your name.
- Keep the evidence. Screenshots of messages, the phone numbers, email addresses, website addresses, payment references and dates. You’ll need them for every report.
Where to report
Reporting rarely brings the money back on its own, but it can help your bank, it builds the evidence that leads to arrests and warnings, and in some countries it’s needed for an insurance or bank claim.
| Where you are | Report it to |
|---|---|
| United States | ReportFraud.ftc.gov (the FTC), and ic3.gov (the FBI) for anything that happened online. Forward scam texts to 7726. If you’re 60 or older, the National Elder Fraud Hotline is 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311). |
| United Kingdom | Report Fraud at reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040 (in Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101). Forward scam emails to report@phishing.gov.uk and scam texts to 7726. |
| Elsewhere | Your bank first, then your national police or fraud reporting centre. Search for it yourself rather than following a link in any message. |
The second wave: recovery scams
Weeks or months after a scam, someone may get in touch with good news: your money has been traced, a case has been opened, and it can be returned. They might say they’re a lawyer, a “fund recovery” firm, or even the FBI. All you need to do is pay a fee, or confirm your bank details.
There is no money waiting. The fee is the scam. Recovery scammers buy lists of people who have already lost money, which is why they know details of your case. The FBI received 10,516 complaints about recovery scams in 2025, with $1.4 billion in reported losses.
- Real law enforcement never charges you to get your money back, and the FBI’s IC3 never contacts victims through social media.
- Legitimate refund programmes don’t ask you to pay first. In the US, official seizure notices are published on forfeiture.gov, and none of them asks for a fee.
- If you want a lawyer, find one yourself, rather than hiring one who approached you.
Our article Recovery Scams: Why Fake FBI Agents Contact Scam Victims covers the patterns in detail.
Try it yourself
Make your emergency plan now (five minutes)
- Save your bank’s fraud number. Turn your card over, find the phone number, and save it in your contacts as “Bank fraud”. Do the same for any other card you use.
- Find the freeze button. Open your banking app and find how to freeze or lock your card. Most apps have it under the card’s settings. Knowing where it is turns a ten-minute search into a two-second tap.
- Check your email’s recovery details. In your email account’s security settings, make sure the recovery phone number and backup email are ones you still have.
- Note where you’d report. Add the reporting address for your country from the table above to the same contact, or to a note on your phone.
- Tell someone. Share these steps with a parent, a grandparent or a friend. Scams aim hardest at the people who’ve never heard of them.
Key takeaways
- Speed matters more than anything: stop the contact, then call your bank on the number from your card.
- Change any password you shared, starting with your email, and turn on two-step sign-in.
- Report it: it can help your bank, and it helps catch the people behind it.
- Anyone offering to recover your money for a fee is running a second scam.
- Prepare now: save your bank’s fraud number and find your app’s freeze button.
Check yourself
Three questions. Pick one answer each and you’ll see why.
1. You’ve just realised you paid a scammer by bank card. What’s the first thing to do?
2. A month after losing money, a “recovery agency” contacts you. They’ve traced your money and can return it for a small fee. What is this?
3. You typed your email password into a fake page. Where should you change it?
That’s the course. You can now spot the four signs of a scam, find the real site behind any link or QR code, check who really sent an email, use public Wi-Fi without handing anything over, make passwords that hold up, and act fast if something goes wrong. Go back to the course page and try the opening quiz again to see how far you’ve come.
More free courses are on the Learn page.
This lesson is part of the free course Scams and Staying Safe, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use, with credit to ExamineIP and a link to the original.