Recovery Scams: Don’t Get Caught Twice

How Recovery Scams Work

Improvements in technology and the increasing organization of cyber criminals mean we’re seeing a rise in recovery scams.

Following a trader losing money to a scam broker, they’re often approached by someone posing as a law enforcement agent, lawyer, regulator, blockchain expert, or chargeback specialist, claiming they can get their funds back. Contact can be made on various channels, but the contact methods we’ve seen used the most firsthand are WhatsApp and email.

The recovery scam often follows a similar pattern:

1. A trader loses money through a fake broker, such as a cloned trading platform or investment website.
2. Someone contacts the trader and claims their funds have been traced or frozen.
3. The supposed recovery agent requests an upfront payment.
4. Further charges may be levied for things like “wallet activation”, “tax”, or “compliance checks”.
5. No money is returned, and the agent eventually disappears when they’ve extracted as much as they can.

Importantly, the first fee may seem small compared with the original loss, e.g. you lost $5,000 in the original scam, and the secondary scammers only want $250. However, this is intentional.

Be extremely wary of any ‘evidence’ they show you to prove they can help. We’ve seen various creative and convincing-looking approaches used, from fake dashboards showing other recovered balances to doctored screenshots of blockchain transactions or legal letters. Do not trust these.

Most days of the week, recovery scammers try to comment on our websites in an attempt to reach our readers. This means we are acutely aware of what they look like, what they write and sound like, and what to be wary of. Below is one example where the poster claims Mrs. Charlotte Scott “came to my rescue”.

A real message from an attempted recovery scammer that we blocked

How They Find You

Recovery scammers can obtain a victim’s details from the original fraudsters, often via so-called ‘suckers lists’. Be wary that they may know:

• Your name and contact details, including phone numbers and email addresses
• The broker or trading platform you used originally
• How much you deposited, down to the cent
• The payment method you used

Often, victims expose themselves by posting about the experience on a public forum like Reddit, Telegram, or review sites. E.g. “I was scammed by X broker and they stole $Y”. The trader is understandably angry and wants to alert others to the scam broker, but they may also be opening themselves up to recovery scammers.

List of Suspected Recovery Scammers

To help keep traders safe, we have compiled the details of all suspected recovery scammers that we’ve come across since June 2025 to June 2026. We’d urge all victims of an original brokerage scam to steer clear of any provider that matches the details provided below.

Note that the inclusion of a name or contact info in this table does not mean they are 100% recovery scams. Also, keep in mind that recovery scammers can change their aliases and contact details, so don’t assume that an unlisted service or a similar-sounding service is legitimate.

What We Found

Our table contains 89 listings compiled from blocked comments promoting suspicous recovery services, and our analysis of these reveals some interesting patterns.

For example, how often scammers reuse contact details under different names. Our entries contained 93 email addresses, but only 71 are unique. There are also 49 WhatsApp numbers but just 29 are actually unique. One number appeared under five different listings, while several others appeared three or four times.

Free email services are very commonly used, rather than a professional/company service. Gmail accounted for 72 of the 93 email addresses, or around 77%. Also more than half provided a WhatsApp number, supporting our earlier point that WhatsApp and email are key channels used to move victims into private conversations.

Other interesting statistics and themes from our dataset:

• At least 15 listings promised recovery within days, a week or as little as 42–48 hours.
• At least 21 used overconfident language like “full recovery”, “complete recovery”, “100%”.
• At least 21 referred to a specific monetary amount, e.g. a Bitcoin amount or six-figure recovery.
• At least 11 used cryptocurrency or blockchain terminology to project technical expertise.

Some supposed success stories involved extraordinary sums, as much as $3 million. Others used highly precise figures, such as $493,730 or $188,600, which can make an invented testimonial sound more authentic.

We also identified clusters of aliases sharing the same contact details. Names like “RSR Firm”, “Urban Rescue” and “Prime Rescue” turned up many times via common email addresses and telephone numbers. Similar patterns appeared among identities using the names “Roberts Lee”, “Quick Recovery Firm”, and “Olivia”.

Warning Signs

These are the key red flags to be wary of:

• The person contacts you on social media. Legitimate law enforcement officials or experts are unlikely to make contact on Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. Be wary if they claim to be the broker that supposedly has the funds, or their compliance, or complaints departments.
• They guarantee they can return your money. Recovering funds from brokerage scams is extremely difficult, especially if it has moved across borders. Nobody can guarantee this.
• They claim the funds are already waiting in a holding account. They may be luring you in to think your money is close to being unlocked.
• They request money before releasing the funds. Police officials and similar do not require a payment to unlock money that is rightly yours.
• They ask for cryptocurrency or payment to a personal account. Recovery scammers often want payments in crypto because they can be easier to obscure and move without being detected.
• They ask for wallet seed phrases, passwords or one-time security codes. They could be trying to bypass two-factor authentication processes, and then may have access to other accounts like existing brokerage accounts.
• Their website, email address or telephone number does not match the institution they claim to represent. Some recovery scammers are sloppier than others, and don’t even bother to make sure their fake details properly reflect a legitimate body’s.

Even a high position on Google or social media is not proof of legitimacy. Scammers can buy advertisements, manipulate search results, clone genuine websites and manufacture positive reviews.

What To Do Instead

Rather than turn to a recovery firm, follow official routes if you’ve been scammed by a sketchy broker or trading platform:

• Contact your bank, card issuer or payment provider and ask whether the transaction can be stopped, recalled or disputed.
• Notify the broker or cryptocurrency exchange through its verified website and official support channels.
• Preserve any messages, transaction records, wallet addresses, and screenshots from the scam.
• Report the fraud to the relevant police force and financial regulator. This can be tricky if the scammers are overseas.
• Secure your accounts, identity documents and devices by changing passwords, for example.

If you have been the victim of a brokerage scam or have come into contact with a suspected recovery scammer, let us know at contact@brokerlistings.com. We can then investigate, and where appropriate, issue warnings to help protect other traders.