Our Anti-Recovery-Scam Pledge
A written, public commitment: Scammers Expose will never promote, endorse, accept payment from, or refer victims to any “fund recovery” service, “scam recovery lawyer,” or “asset retrieval consultant.” This is the most important promise we make to readers.
Why This Pledge Exists
People who have just been scammed are the most vulnerable readers we have. They’ve lost money, they’re in emotional shock, and they’re searching desperately for any way to get their funds back. This is precisely the moment when recovery scammers strike.
The pattern is consistent across every country we cover:
- Victim posts about their loss on Reddit, Twitter, Quora, Trustpilot, or a fraud-support forum
- Within hours, multiple accounts reach out via DM or comments offering “recovery services”
- The “recovery agent” claims to have specialised tools to trace and retrieve crypto, wire transfers, or chargebacks
- An upfront fee is requested — often labelled as “court costs,” “tax,” “blockchain access fee,” or “lawyer retainer”
- Once paid, the recovery agent either disappears, demands more fees, or in some cases delivers fabricated “evidence” of recovery progress to extract additional money
Our Six Public Commitments
No Recovery Service Promotion
We will never feature, recommend, link to, or speak positively about any company, person, or “agent” offering fund-recovery services in exchange for payment.
No Recovery Service Income
We will never accept advertising revenue, sponsorship payments, affiliate commissions, or referral fees from any recovery-service entity. Not now, not in future.
No Inbound Referrals
We will never pass reader contact details, scam-report data, or any information about victims to recovery-service entities, “scam lawyers,” or asset-retrieval firms.
Proactive Warnings
Where we identify a specific recovery-scam operator targeting our readers, we will publish a warning naming the entity and documenting the tactics — within our editorial standards and legal limits.
Comment Moderation
We actively remove blog comments, forum responses, and reader-section posts that promote recovery services. This includes comments that appear designed to look like victim testimonials but route to recovery agents.
Honest Recovery Information
When we explain recovery options, we describe what realistically works (bank chargebacks, official reporting, regulated legal action) and what doesn’t (crypto “tracing,” unsolicited agents, upfront-fee schemes).
How Recovery Scams Work — The Mechanics
Recovery scams are sophisticated. Many look legitimate at first glance — professional websites, claimed certifications, fake regulator listings, paid testimonials, even office addresses in London, New York, or Dubai. The mechanics they use:
Victim identification
They scrape Reddit, Twitter, Quora, Trustpilot reviews, scam-reporting forums, Facebook groups, and even legitimate news article comments to identify fresh victims. They look for emotional language and specific loss details.
First contact
Unsolicited DM, comment reply, email, or WhatsApp message. Often poses as a fellow victim who has “successfully recovered” and recommends an agent — this is the most common opener. Sometimes poses directly as the recovery agent.
Credibility theatre
Provides a polished website, fake regulatory licenses (often impersonating FCA, SEC, ASIC), screenshots of “successful recoveries,” LinkedIn profiles with stolen photos, and sometimes fake reviews on Trustpilot or Google.
Investigation theatre
Asks for screenshots, transaction IDs, wallet addresses — information you’ve already shared publicly. Claims to “trace” the funds. Provides fabricated reports showing “located” funds in offshore wallets or accounts.
First payment request
Asks for an upfront fee labelled as “blockchain access,” “court filing,” “tax clearance,” “lawyer retainer,” “international wire fees,” or “exchange unlock.” The amount is usually moderate — designed to be paid without too much hesitation.
Escalation and milking
Once the first payment is made, additional “fees” emerge: “the funds are almost out, we just need one more tax payment”, “the bank is releasing the money but requires verification fees”, “a court order needs filing”. Victims often lose more in recovery scams than in the original scam.
Disappearance or threat
Eventually the agent stops responding, or — if the victim threatens to report — switches to threats, fake legal notices, or claims that “the funds are now in legal limbo and additional fees are required to release them.”
How to Spot a Recovery Scam — Universal Red Flags
- They contacted you first. Legitimate lawyers, banks, and recovery routes do not cold-contact scam victims.
- They claim to specialise in “crypto recovery” or “asset tracing”. Real crypto recovery requires law-enforcement subpoena power — no private agent has this.
- They ask for upfront fees of any kind. Real licensed attorneys may charge retainers, but never via crypto, gift cards, or wire to offshore accounts.
- They guarantee recovery. No legitimate professional guarantees outcomes in fraud cases — too many variables.
- They use urgency. “The window is closing”, “we need to act today”, “the funds will move soon” — same playbook as the original scam.
- Their “regulator license” doesn’t check out. Always verify directly on the regulator’s official website (FCA Register, SEC EDGAR, ASIC search) — never via links the agent provides.
- They show fake testimonials. Stock photos, generic names, no verifiable details, suspiciously perfect five-star reviews.
- They request remote-access software “to help recover funds from your wallet/account”. Never install AnyDesk, TeamViewer, or remote-access tools at anyone’s request.
- They claim insider connections. “Our contact at the exchange/bank/police can release the funds for a small fee” — corruption-claim pattern, always a scam.
What Real Recovery Looks Like
Real, legitimate recovery routes share these characteristics — and they are all free or run through licensed, verifiable channels:
Your Bank
Chargebacks (credit cards), ACH/SEPA reversals (bank transfers), wire recall requests. Free. Strongest within 24-72 hours of the fraud.
Your Country’s Authority
FTC (US), Action Fraud (UK), Scamwatch (AU), NCRP/1930 (IN), Onlinewache (DE). All free. All necessary for any subsequent recovery action.
Financial Ombudsman
Free dispute resolution if your bank refuses to reimburse. UK has the strongest scheme; most EU countries and US states have equivalents.
Licensed Attorney (You Hire)
If pursuing civil recovery, hire a properly licensed attorney through your own search — verify their bar credentials on the relevant state/country bar association website. Never accept a recommendation from someone who contacted you first.
Consumer Protection NGOs
AARP Fraud Watch (US, 1-877-908-3360), Citizens Advice (UK 0808 250 5050), IDCARE (AU 1800 595 160), Verbraucherzentrale (DE). All free.
Mental Health Support
988 (US), Samaritans 116 123 (UK), Lifeline 13 11 14 (AU), iCall (India). Free, 24/7, confidential. Scam victimisation can cause serious distress.
If You’ve Already Paid a Recovery Scam
Many victims who paid a recovery scam tell us they feel deeper shame than after the original scam. That feeling is exactly what the second-stage scammers exploit. You are not alone, and you are not stupid — you were targeted while in emotional shock by criminals who specialise in exactly this.
- Apply the same 24-hour emergency recovery steps as for the original scam — call your bank, freeze cards, file a fresh complaint with your country’s reporting authority
- Report the recovery-scam operator separately — many recovery-scam entities are actively investigated by national authorities, and your report contributes to the case file
- Cut all contact with the recovery agent — block on every channel
- Talk to someone you trust about what happened — isolation is what the scammer wants
- If you need mental-health support, reach out — scam victimisation can trigger severe depression and anxiety, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of
You can also email info@scammersexpose.com — we read every message personally and can point you to the right official authority for your situation. We will never ask for money, payment, or any “fee” of any kind.
How to Hold Us Accountable
This pledge is not a marketing line. We invite readers, journalists, regulators, and competitors to hold us to it. Specifically:
- Watch our content. If you ever see Scammers Expose linking to, endorsing, or referring readers to a recovery service, screenshot it and email info@scammersexpose.com immediately. We will investigate and respond publicly.
- Watch our comments. If you see a recovery-service promotion in our blog comments that we haven’t removed within 24 hours, report it to us — we will remove it and ban the account.
- Watch our advertisers. We currently run no commercial ads on this site. If we ever introduce advertising, our policy is that no recovery-service entity will ever appear. If you spot one, tell us.
- Watch our affiliate disclosures. We will declare any affiliate relationship at the top of every relevant article and on our Editorial Standards page. No recovery service will ever be an affiliate.
Why We Make This Public Pledge
Most scam-information sites either tacitly accept recovery-service advertising, run affiliate links to “fund retrieval” entities, or refuse to address the topic directly. We disagree with all three approaches.
Recovery scams cause more total harm than many of the original scams they exploit. Victims who lost $2,000 in an investment scam often go on to lose $20,000+ in recovery-scam fees chasing the original money. We believe the scam-information industry has a moral obligation to address this honestly, not to profit from it.
This pledge is also our commitment to editorial independence. We exist to help victims, not to monetise their desperation. Every piece of content on this site is held to the same standard: would I want my own family member to read this if they had just been scammed?
This Pledge Is Permanent
This page will remain published as long as Scammers Expose exists. We commit to never removing it, never editing it to weaken the commitments, and never adding exceptions or carve-outs. The only edits will be:
- Adding new commitments or strengthening existing ones
- Adding new red-flag patterns as recovery scams evolve
- Linking to new published warnings about specific recovery-scam operators
- Updating the “Last reviewed” date with each review
If you are reading this in 2027, 2030, or beyond — the commitments above still apply. They are not subject to growth-stage logic, monetisation pressure, or “we just need this one exception” reasoning. The promise is permanent.
Spotted a recovery scam targeting you or someone else?
Tell us. We track recovery-scam operators and publish warnings where we have enough evidence. Your tip could prevent the next victim from losing thousands more.
First published: May 2026 · Last reviewed: May 2026 · This is a permanent commitment.