Recovery scam

Also called refund and recovery scam, fund recovery scam

A second scam aimed at people who've already lost money, offering to get it back for an upfront fee.

Losing money to a scam makes you a target for the next one. Recovery scammers pose as law firms, government agencies, "blockchain investigators" or even the original company, and they often know exactly what happened to you, because victims' details are bought and sold.

Their pitch is hope: your money has been traced, frozen, or can be released, after a fee, a tax or a "verification" payment. Each payment leads to another.

AI has given them official faces. The FBI has warned of AI-generated videos of one of its senior leaders encouraging victims to file reports on a fake FBI website, and of people posing as agents on social media. The real FBI complaint centre says it doesn't recover money through Facebook, Telegram or similar platforms.

For example

Weeks after a crypto loss, a "lawyer" on Facebook says the FBI has frozen your funds and you just need to pay a release fee.

WITH PLUS

Put it to use

Where you'll meet recovery scam in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, how to use it there, and the mix-up most people make.

Daily Bytes Plus is in the Android app.