Three things stated before anything else
- This checklist is not legal advice. The procedure and effect of reporting or appealing depend entirely on your jurisdiction; go by the rules where you are.
- No outcome is promised. We make no judgement about whether funds can be recovered or an account released, and we provide no service of any kind.
- This is a general sequence, meant to stop you making things worse or losing evidence during the most chaotic hours.
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Choose both options above and the sequence for that situation will appear here.
Why the order is stop, preserve, contact
Those three cannot be reordered.
Stopping comes first because losses are rarely single events. The instinct after discovering one is to try to fix it, and that stretch of time is when the second loss most often happens — the other side is still there, still supplying new reasons. Cut the channel first; everything else can be discussed afterwards.
Preserving comes second because evidence decays. Messages get deleted from the other end, accounts get closed, pages come down. Capture screenshots before you contact anybody, and capture full context rather than the two lines that seem important.
Contacting comes third, not because it is unimportant, but because until the first two are done you cannot explain the situation clearly. A timeline, amounts and counterparty details assembled into one coherent account is worth more than ten phone calls.
After a loss, the real hazard is the second scam
Engage no recovery service
Anyone who contacts you after a loss promising to recover funds or release an account is addressing somebody who has demonstrably paid once and badly wants to fix it. That is the most precisely targeted audience in the entire field.
The shape is identical to a gate scam: a service fee or deposit first, then the next reason. Any recovery offer requiring upfront payment needs no further analysis.
The same reasoning applies to posting publicly. Putting the details, account information and contact details out in the open leads directly to targeted private messages — the route described in how fake support finds you. Asking for help is fine; publishing more personal information is not.
If your situation is a frozen bank account, work out which of the two kinds it is first — they differ entirely in cause, duration and who can help. See why P2P cash-outs get bank accounts flagged and your account got frozen, what to do first.