Is a broker or service promising to recover my lost crypto investments legitimate?
No. Crypto recovery services are themselves scams that re-victimise people who have already lost money.
Last reviewed: 1 August 2026
Explanation
After losing money to a cryptocurrency scam, victims are often targeted again by recovery scam operators. These services claim to have legal or technical tools to trace and recover stolen cryptocurrency — for an upfront fee. Some pose as law firms, blockchain forensics companies, or government-affiliated agencies. The recovery never happens, and the victim loses their advance payment on top of the original fraud. Real blockchain transactions are largely irreversible, and genuine recovery in rare cases is handled by law enforcement with court orders — not by private companies soliciting you after a loss. If you lost crypto to fraud, report to the police and your national fraud authority, who can liaise with exchanges to freeze proceeds in exceptional circumstances.
Recovery scammers find victims with unpleasant efficiency: they monitor complaint forums, social media posts about losses, and comment sections, and in some cases buy victim lists traded by the original fraudsters — which is why the approach often arrives soon after you have been scammed and seems to know details of your case. Grief and the desire to undo the loss are the levers. It helps to set a firm personal rule at the moment of the first loss: any unsolicited contact offering to recover it, whatever credentials it claims, is the second wave of the same attack.
Common red flags
- Service contacted you first, often soon after you reported a scam
- Upfront fee required before recovery begins
- Claims to have special technical or legal access to recover crypto
- Uses official-sounding names or claims government affiliation
- Cannot provide verifiable evidence of successful past recoveries
What to do now
- Do not pay any recovery service
- Report the original fraud and the recovery attempt to your national fraud authority
- Contact your bank if any fiat payment was made
- Be aware that further contact from recovery services is likely — block these proactively
Frequently asked questions
Is there any legitimate way to recover stolen crypto?
In limited cases, police can obtain court orders to freeze assets at exchanges. This requires a formal crime report and is not guaranteed. No private company can offer meaningful recovery outside of this legal process.
A 'blockchain investigator' showed me a report tracing exactly where my funds went — is that credible?
Tracing tools are real and the report may even be broadly accurate, but tracing is not recovery. Only law enforcement with legal orders can compel an exchange to freeze or return funds. Anyone selling recovery based on a tracing report is monetising your hope, not retrieving your money.