Recovery Scams — Why Scammers Call Prior Targets Pretending to Get Their Money Back
Weeks or months after being defrauded, some people receive a call from someone who seems to know exactly what happened to them. The caller says they’re with a law enforcement agency, a government recovery unit, or a law firm that specializes in retrieving money lost to fraud. They have details about the original scam. They say they’ve identified the fraudsters. All that’s needed to move forward is a fee — to cover legal costs, processing, taxes, or some other administrative requirement.
It feels different from the original scam. This person knows things. They sound official. And the desire to recover what was lost is real and completely understandable.
This is a second scam. It’s specifically designed to target people who have already been defrauded.
How Fraudsters Know Who to Call
The detail that makes this scam so convincing is that the callers often know specifics about the original fraud. This isn’t a coincidence or a lucky guess. It happens because information about people who’ve been targeted gets shared, traded, or sold.
In fraud circles, these are sometimes called “sucker lists” — databases of people known to have responded to scams. These lists can circulate among different fraud operations. When someone falls for one scam, their name and contact information may end up on a list that gets sold to another operation.
So when the recovery “agency” calls you by name and mentions the investment platform you lost money on, they’re not psychics. They bought a list.
Why the Promise Feels Real
Being defrauded is disorienting. The financial loss is real. The embarrassment is real. The wish to make it right is completely natural. When someone calls with a credible-sounding story and specific details — and when they offer exactly what you’ve been hoping for — it can cut through even reasonable scepticism.
The callers are often skilled at this. They use official-sounding names for their organization, reference real government agencies, and create the same sense of urgency and legitimacy that the original scam used. They know their callers are in a vulnerable state. That’s the point.
What Legitimate Recovery Looks Like
Here’s the clearest signal to watch for: legitimate recovery processes do not require upfront fees.
If you reported a scam to your bank, and your bank’s fraud department is working on a potential recall, they do not ask you to pay a fee to process the recovery. If law enforcement recovers funds as part of a fraud investigation and those funds are returned to affected people, this does not involve an administrative fee that you pay in advance.
Any organization that asks for an upfront payment in exchange for recovering your lost funds is running a scam.
Legitimate government agencies — including the RCMP, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, and provincial law enforcement — do not contact fraud targets to offer paid recovery services. If someone claims to be with one of these agencies and is asking for money, end the call.
What to Do If You Get This Call
Hang up. You do not owe the caller your time, your patience, or any explanation.
If you’ve already given them information or money, contact the CAFC immediately at 1-888-495-8501 or antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca. Report what happened, what was said, and any phone numbers or contact information they provided. This is a reportable fraud, and your report contributes to the tracking of these operations.
If you sent money via a bank transfer or e-Transfer, contact your bank’s fraud line and explain the situation. As with any fraud, acting quickly gives you the best chance of any potential recovery on the bank’s end.
The Larger Pattern
Recovery scams thrive on the same conditions that allowed the first scam to work: the desire for the situation to be resolved, the hope that the loss isn’t permanent, and the willingness to trust someone who seems to have answers. That’s not a flaw in the people targeted. It’s a human response that these callers deliberately exploit.
Knowing that this second call may come — and knowing exactly what it is when it does — removes the element of surprise that makes it effective.
One Thing to Do
If you receive a call from someone claiming they can recover money you lost in a scam, hang up. Then call CAFC at 1-888-495-8501 or report it at antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca. Your report helps investigators track these operations and protect other people in the same situation.
Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre: 1-888-495-8501 or antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca. In 2024, Canadians reported $492 million in fraud losses — CAFC is there to help.