If you sent money to a scammer, contact your bank or payment provider immediately through its official app or the number on your card. Ask what can be stopped, recalled, or disputed. Give the payment details and explain exactly how the payment happened. A complete evidence file can follow the first urgent report.
Make the first call before assembling every screenshot
Start with the institution that sent the money. If a payment app was involved, notify that provider too. The FTC recommends prompt contact with the payment provider and asking whether the payment can be reversed or refunded. Recovery is not assured.
- End contact with the person directing the payment. Do not use a number, support link, or new bank account supplied in that conversation.
- Find the transaction in your genuine banking app or statement. Note its amount, currency, date, recipient, and reference.
- Tell the bank that the payment is connected to a suspected scam. State whether you made it, someone else made it, or you cannot yet tell.
- Ask whether any payment is pending, whether an urgent recall or recipient-bank notification is possible, and what account protection is needed.
- Record the case reference, the department handling it, the information requested, and any deadline the bank gives you.
Do not wait for a perfect report: a missing screenshot is a reason to supplement your report later, not a reason to postpone telling the bank.
If money is still leaving the account or you see sign-ins you do not recognize, follow the separate steps for a compromised bank account. Financial containment and preserving your evidence can happen together. A trusted person can help take notes while you speak to the bank, without receiving your password or taking over your identity.
Describe who initiated each payment
“I was scammed” describes the incident, but it does not tell the bank how the transfer happened. The account owner pressing Send after a false promise is different from an intruder logging in and sending money. An incident can contain both. Do not combine several transfers into a single assumed explanation.
Use factual language. For example: “I sent this payment after receiving a message pretending to be my supplier,” or “I gave a caller a code, and then discovered a transfer I did not initiate.” If you approved a prompt without understanding it, describe the prompt and what the caller told you. Do not guess what the bank's system recorded.
For covered U.S. consumer electronic transfers, the CFPB's Regulation E guidance explains that transfers initiated by a third party using fraudulently obtained account-access information can be unauthorized. Giving a scammer access information does not automatically make every later transfer authorized. The rule's application depends on the facts and the type of account and transfer.
Do not label a payment unauthorized merely to seek a different outcome if you actually initiated it. Equally, do not accept an inaccurate description of an intruder's transfer as your own. Ask the bank to record your account of events and explain the process it is applying.
| What you know | What to tell the bank | Useful supporting record |
|---|---|---|
| You pressed Send after deception | What you believed you were paying for and who supplied the destination | The payment instruction and matching receipt |
| Someone else initiated the transfer | When you discovered it and whether credentials or codes were exposed | Alerts, device notices, and a transaction reference |
| A caller controlled your screen | What the caller could see or operate and what you personally approved | Remote-support app details and the call timeline |
| You cannot tell how it happened | The facts you can establish and the questions still unresolved | The statement entry and your discovery notes |
Build a payment table from real records
Use a separate row for each transfer. Copy amounts from bank or provider records, not from a scammer's dashboard. Keep the original currency. If you add a converted estimate, label it and record the conversion date so it is not mistaken for the actual payment amount.
Include the sending institution, payment method, date and time, time zone if available, recipient details as displayed, and transaction reference. Where a displayed recipient name differs from the name the scammer used, retain both and explain the difference. A name on a receipt is not proof of the person's true identity.
Distinguish a payment request, a pending transaction, a completed debit, and a refund. If a transaction changes status, add the new status with the observation date. Do not overwrite the earlier record or count a pending request as a completed loss.
If you bought cryptocurrency through a legitimate exchange and then sent it elsewhere, record those as separate stages. The purchase and the onward transfer are not two separate losses of the same money. A bank receipt may show the purchase; the exchange record may identify the subsequent destination. Explain the chain without suggesting that the exchange itself was the impersonator.
When a friend or relative paid from their account, identify that payment separately. The account holder may need to contact their own institution and provide authorization for any assistance. Keep each person's bank reference associated with the correct transfer.
Show the deception beside the payment it caused
The most useful message is often the one that changed your decision: the new account details, a demand to move money for safety, a promise of a withdrawal, or an instruction to ignore a bank warning. Place that message beside the payment it led to, rather than sending hundreds of unrelated screenshots without an index.
A concise opening summary can contain four facts: how contact began, who the person claimed to be, what they asked you to do, and what you did. Follow it with the payment table and a short chronology. Label any uncertain date as approximate rather than inventing precision.
An illustrative summary might read: “On Monday, someone claiming to be my contractor sent revised bank details in our email conversation. I transferred the invoice amount that afternoon. On Tuesday, the contractor confirmed by our previously used phone number that the details were not theirs.” Replace every part with your own facts; do not reuse an example as evidence.
If the caller told you to transfer savings into a supposedly protected account, include that instruction explicitly. It is the central deception in a move-your-money safety scam. Save the demand to keep the conversation secret or misstate the reason for the payment if one was made.
Keep originals and share only what is needed
Retain original messages, emails, receipts, and attachments where you can access them safely. Screenshots help a reviewer see the conversation, but an exported message or original email may retain additional context. Give files simple descriptive names, such as the date followed by “payment instruction” or “bank receipt.”
Keep an untouched copy of the evidence and prepare separate copies for sharing. Redact unrelated account activity or third-party personal information when it is not needed. Ask the bank what identifiers it requires and use its verified secure submission channel for sensitive documents.
Do not include passwords, login codes, backup codes, wallet recovery phrases, or private keys. A reporting form may need a transaction reference; it does not need the secret that controls an account. If a screenshot accidentally shows a secret, keep it out of ordinary correspondence and address the exposed credential separately.
Evidence is not access: the bank needs to understand the disputed transaction. A caller asking for a fresh login code is asking for something different.
Ask questions that produce a usable next step
Before ending the call, ask which team owns the case, how to add evidence, and where you can read the bank's written explanation of the process. Ask whether separate reports are needed for multiple payment methods. A card purchase and a bank transfer may be handled differently even when the scammer is the same.
- What action has actually been requested, and what remains under review?
- Is a payment still pending, and can anything prevent its completion?
- Does the bank need a signed statement or confirmation through its app?
- What information is missing from the transaction record?
- What deadline applies to my response, and where is it documented?
- How should I challenge an incorrect factual description or request a written outcome?
Do not treat “we have raised a case” as confirmation that money is frozen or coming back. Record the bank's actual words. If the person handling the call cannot answer a question, note that it remains open and request the appropriate follow-up route.
There is no single deadline or reimbursement rule that applies to every scam payment worldwide. Consumer and business accounts, card purchases, bank transfers, and cryptocurrency have different rules. This is general information, not legal advice. Ask the provider about your specific transaction and obtain qualified local advice when a deadline or a disputed decision materially affects your rights.
Keep bank, police, and fraud reports connected
An official crime report and a bank dispute serve different purposes. Keep their reference numbers distinct and explain which organization issued each. Reporting to one organization should not be assumed to notify every other institution involved.
For an internet-enabled crime in the United States, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center provides a reporting route. Elsewhere, use your country's official fraud or police reporting service. If there is an immediate threat to someone's physical safety, use local emergency services instead of waiting for an online submission.
A denial or a request for more documents should go into the same follow-up log. Save the reason given, the date, and any review route identified. A factual correction should identify exactly what is wrong and point to the relevant evidence. Repeating the whole history without addressing the disputed fact can make the issue harder to follow.
Organize the record after urgent bank contact
You can create a Scam Incident Record to organize the payment timeline, messages, receipts, and follow-up references. Review extracted details against your originals. Keep confirmed transfers separate from requested payments or promised profits.
Creating a record does not contact your bank, submit an official report, reverse a payment, or guarantee a refund. You review and send information to the appropriate recipient yourself. Report preparation should support urgent action, never delay it.
Be cautious if someone approaches you afterward claiming that they can release recovered funds for a fee. The separate recovery-fee scam checklist explains how to assess that new approach without adding another loss.
A useful case stays consistent as it develops
The strength of the record comes from the connection between an instruction, a payment, and the action taken afterward. Each new receipt or response should clarify that connection. Uncertainty belongs in the record too, identified as uncertainty.
A good outcome cannot be promised from the quality of a report alone. Payment systems, available funds, evidence, and applicable rules all matter. A clear account still gives the bank and other recipients a better basis for identifying what happened and what options remain.
The practical measure of progress is whether the next person handling the case can distinguish confirmed facts from assumptions without asking you to reconstruct the incident from the beginning.