So you just noticed that your “best buddy” – a boiler room guy who has told you that he is probably one of the most experienced online traders ever – is no longer reachable for you. Neither he nor anyone else from the online trading website reacts to your emails. No one has called you back for several weeks, and most importantly, the promised refund of your money has not yet arrived.
Summarized, you just realized that you got SCAMMED! so what can you do?
As we have heard the stories of more than 1,000 victims experiencing the same as you have, we advise as follows:
- Do not think that you are the one to blame, and do not be ashamed! The type of fraud you have just experienced has been ongoing for over ten years in Europe. Thousands of victims have experienced the same as you do right now. The scammers have amassed considerable funds to establish vast and highly professional criminal organisations. The boiler room guys (your best buddy, as long as he assumes you still have funds to invest) have got scripts written by well-educated people to trick you into the scam.
- Calm down, do not get desperate! Avoid engaging with even more unscrupulous recovery companies that promise to recover stolen funds and require significant upfront payments. They can not get your funds back. When you discover the fraud, your money has already vanished. Stop thinking that you can earn your money back by investing with another online investment website promising great and unrealistic returns. Currently, more than 99% of online investment websites are scams.
- Accept that getting your funds back quickly and within days or months is impossible. Prepare yourself for a prolonged and arduous battle with an uncertain outcome.
- If you just (a few days ago) made another deposit via bank transfer or via credit card/debit card to the scammers, be sure to get in touch with your bank immediately, tell them to stop the transaction right now, and promise to bring evidence for the fraud.
- Collect all evidence. Establish a written summary of what happened to you. Collect all your deposit slips showing the transfers to the scammers and store all emails exchanged with them.
- Use the written summary and all collected evidence to file a criminal complaint with the competent authority as soon as possible. There are thousands of other people who experienced the same fraud. You support the scammers by not reporting the incident to the police. You also enable the European authorities to tell everyone that everything is fine with cybersecurity for consumers in Europe.
- Ask for a copy of the criminal complaint and write down the phone number and email address of the person in charge, as you will have to bother this person during the next weeks and months. If the police officer keeps telling you that there are no chances to identify the scammers and that you are to blame, reject the answer. You are a victim of fraud and rightfully ask for a proper criminal investigation.
- Please take a copy of the criminal complaint, send it to your bank, and ask for a chargeback of all your credit card/debit card transactions. Be prepared for a fight, as they will refuse it; they will tell you that you made online investments, so there is no possibility of a chargeback. Request that your case be referred to the fraud department of your bank/credit card organisation. Be persistent and prepare for several emails and calls you will have to make before getting your money back.
- If you only did bank transfers, be prepared that there is no chargeback possible for authorised push payments. Nevertheless, please instruct your bank to contact the bank that received the money and attempt to access the beneficiary’s account.
- Be persistent: Be aware that your bank will tell you that they are just service providers. Your requests will bother them. This is not your fault. They have some obligations as your customer. In the United States, victims have filed a legal claim against their banks, accusing them of receiving information about a specific fraud scheme and failing to warn their other customers who also fell victim to this scam.
- Warn other people about the fraud you experienced by writing bad reviews about the scammers on Trustpilot or on Forex Peace Army and writing to Fintelegram.
- Be persistent and do not get frustrated, be prepared to get the information from the prosecutor that they closed your criminal case because of being unable to identify the scammer. Continue to call and write to them, stating that you do not accept the decision to close the criminal case. It will not help – because they will close the case anyway- but they should be aware that you do not agree to this procedure.
- Join fraud-fighter groups (like here on Facebook) and look for victims of the same scam on other social media channels. Fighting with others makes it a lot easier.
- Get active in alerting the supervisory authorities about the scam you experienced and their responsibility to protect you and go after the fraudsters.
- Join us (EFRI) as we go against the banks and the European supervisory authorities. Both are neglecting their duties in many respects.
- Strictly avoid recovery scammers. When the scammers realise that you have no more money to spend, they sell your data (including email addresses, phone numbers, and the total loss experienced). Recovery scammers pay high amounts for the victims’ data. The victims’ data sale subsequently results in many cold calls and massive email spamming from other scammers. Stop talking to them; they do not intend to help you.