Some Victims Are Able to Recover Money After Scams. Here’s How.

Criminals know how to move stolen money quickly, but sometimes it can be clawed back

Ken Budd,

AARP

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Published April 06, 2026

A stack of twenty dollar bills with a stamp saying returned to sender

Chris Gash

Key takeaways

Recovering money after a scam is rare because criminals move funds quickly and overseas.
Speed matters most; acting fast with banks and payment platforms can sometimes stop losses.
Reporting scams helps investigators connect cases and may lead to limited recovery later.

When scam victims report a crime to anti-fraud nonprofit Operation Shamrock, the organization connects them that day with an investigator to work on their case. In 2025, 20 investigators — volunteers from law enforcement who specialize in fraud — helped 206 victims nationwide to trace and recover $3 million.

“Not all of the $3 million got back to the victims,” says Erin West, Operation Shamrock’s founder and a former deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County, California, but getting some money back is gratifying for victims both financially and emotionally.

Such cases are encouraging, but as scams proliferate, recovering stolen money remains difficult.

“Recovery is very rare,” says Amy Nofziger, senior director of victim support with the AARP Fraud Watch Network. Adds West: “We occasionally have some good luck, but for the most part, you will not be able to recover your funds.”

Why recovery is so difficult

Scammers typically steal money via hard-to-trace payment methods, such as gift cards, cash and gold, and transfer it through a maze of locations.“Funds often move through multiple accounts and jurisdictions very quickly, which reduces the odds of reversal,” says fraud prevention expert Alexis Abramson, author of Stop Fraud: Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones From Fraud, Scams and Identity Theft. And the money frequently travels outside of the United States: “The bad guys want to move that money from anything identified to you to something under a shell corporation in another country,” says West.

When the funds are transferred through multiple accounts in multiple countries, it becomes far more difficult to trace.

The same is true with cryptocurrency. A few years ago, criminals sometimes left crypto funds in online wallets, giving law enforcement an opportunity to seize them, says West. Now the scammers quickly move the money overseas.

“The money was sitting in a way that it’s not sitting anymore,” she explains. “Today the bad guys are cashing it out as soon as they can on the other side of the world and outside the jurisdiction of American law enforcement. So there’s nothing to recover.”

Ways to get money back

Recovering money is unlikely but not impossible. Once you know you’ve experienced a scam, respond in this order, Abramson advises:

Stop communicating with the scammer
Preserve evidence
Notify financial institutions
Report the crime to law enforcement

To improve your chances of recovering money, take these steps.

Catch your breath. Before you leap into action, take a few minutes to gather yourself.

“Scam victims are often in a heightened state of fear, embarrassment or urgency,” says Abramson. “Taking a brief pause helps regulate the nervous system so you can think clearly and take the right steps.”

Gather your records. Among the records that investigators will likely want to review are emails, texts, phone numbers, transaction receipts, screenshots, account statements and timelines that will help banks and law enforcement trace patterns and identify accounts being used to move or hide stolen money.

Act fast. “The single most important factor is speed,” says Abramson. “Victims should immediately — after taking a deep breath — contact their bank, credit card issuer or payment platform and clearly state that they are reporting fraud. Financial institutions can sometimes freeze or recall transactions if alerted quickly, particularly with wire transfers, ACH payments or newer digital payment platforms.”

Report the scam. Once you’ve notified your financial institutions, contact your local police (here’s our advice on how to do so).

“The sooner you are willing to get yourself in front of a qualified investigator, the more likely you are to recover [your money],” says West. Local law enforcement may or may not be equipped to handle a scam case, but reporting is still important “because we want them to understand: Hey, you’ve got a problem in your community,” she says. Another benefit: In identity theft cases, a police report often satisfies creditors and agencies that want proof of the crime, notes the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Also report the scam to your state attorney general’s office (in Minnesota, a new Consumer Protection Restitution Account will help victims of various scams receive compensation for losses) and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3.gov).

“There is a chance, a very small chance, that someday what you have reported will be connected to something else, and there will be a recovery, and you will end up getting your money back,” says West.

Investigate crypto ATM recovery. At least two states are helping victims recover money sent to scammers via crypto kiosks. The state of Maine reached a $1.9 million settlement in January with Bitcoin Depot, a crypto ATM operator. The settlement reimburses people who used the company’s ATMs in Maine from 2022 to 2025 to convert cash into cryptocurrency for scammers. In Arizona, a new law allows victims of crypto ATM scams to apply for a refund. And Indiana recently became the first state to outlaw crypto kiosks, with AARP’s backing.

Operation Shamrock has also had some success recovering crypto ATM fees.

“Sometimes, even if we can’t get your money back, we can get back the exorbitant fees that you paid,” says West. “So if you paid 20 percent in fees, and you lost $10,000, it’s nice to get $2,000 of that back.”

Ask the payment platform you used for reimbursement. Did you send money to a scammer using Zelle? If so, you might be able to recoup your losses. Since 2023, the peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service has investigated and recovered money lost to criminals. Among the requirements for Zelle to begin an investigation: the scammer must have impersonated a government agency, a financial institution or a service provider (such as a utility company) and you must report the fraud within 120 days of its occurrence. Report the crime to the bank or credit union where you have your Zelle account. Also report it to Zelle online.

PayPal has an online security center where you can report fraud or unauthorized activity, and Venmo suggests contacting its support team if you used its service to pay a scammer. The companies are often unable to cancel payments to criminals, but you should still report the fraud.

Seek gift card reimbursement. Scammers often want you to pay them with gift cards. If that happens, you might be able to recover all or some of the money by reporting the fraud to the gift card company. The FTC maintains a list of popular gift card companies and how to contact them; if you still have the card (many victims provide the card number to scammers by phone or text), look for a 1-800 number on the back. The Retail Gift Card Association suggests that customers tell the company that the card was used in a scam and provide a receipt or the card number.

“Once you report a gift card scam to the gift card company, ask for your money back,” the FTC recommends. “If the money was frozen or not downloaded by the scammer, some gift card companies will give the money back.” In addition to possibly reimbursing victims, some companies will flag fraudulent transactions and freeze stolen gift card money so criminals can’t access it, the FTC states.

Beware of recovery scams. Many scam victims are retargeted in recovery scams where criminals pose as someone from law enforcement, a consumer advocacy organization, a law firm or a government agency and charge fees for phony recovery services.

“If you’ve been scammed once, you are now on a list, and they will come for you again,” West says.

Ignore the offers, Abramson advises: “Anyone who promises they can get your money back for a fee is almost always running a second scam.”

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

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Ken Budd has written for National Geographic Traveler, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine and many more. He is the author of a memoir, The Voluntourist.