Well, it’s happened. You’ve been duped. You fell for a scam, and you lost money. It might be some kind of romance scam, or a crypto scam, or a jury duty scam.

You want it back. And of course there’s someone willing to help… for a fee. It may be a lawyer (these are especially popular on Facebook, due to its terrible policies); it may be a hacker. It may be some kind of other ‘recovery specialist’.

They’ll have you follow directions - pay some sort of fee, or generate a crypto wallet that you will be tricked into giving them access to. You’ll pay, and then supposedly they will get the funds back.

Needless to say, you do not get the money back, and now you’ve paid another scammer.

How to protect yourself
Your money from the original scam is essentially gone! There’s a reason why scammers like cryptocurrency, money wiring, and gift cards. Those are all ways to keep the victim from reversing the payment and recovering the money. It makes it near impossible to recover the funds in question, even by experts.

Now, you might have a slim chance of getting lucky if you go to the police and your bank - you know, legit institutions - and talking to them, especially if it’s a wire transfer from a bank. It’s far from guaranteed but it’s better than nothing.

Learn your lesson, don’t beat yourself up from it, become wise to how scammers work, and don’t fall prey again. That’s your recovery.