Recovery Scams – Being Approached Again After You Have Already Lost Money

You lost money to a scam. Weeks, months or years later, somebody contacts you about it. They know what happened — the firm, roughly what you paid, sometimes the date — and they say they can get it back. They may present as a recovery agent, a law firm, a regulator or a government department. Before the money can be released, there is a payment to make first. The Central Bank of Ireland treats this as a stage of the fraud rather than a footnote to it. Its guidance on avoiding scams carries a section headed "Avoid being targeted a second time", and the wording is blunt: "If you have been a victim of a scam or fraud, you are likely to be targeted again. This could be weeks or years after the original scam or fraud took place." On what that second approach offers, it says: "Often you may be offered what seems like a chance of recovering the money you lost on the original scam or fraud. This could take many forms but will usually involve sending some sort of fee in order to recover your money." It names the shapes the fee takes — "a supposed tax, government administration fee, re-bonding fee etc." — and warns that the people behind it "will often pose as fictitious government agencies, issuing you with fraudulent papers regarding legal action, non-disclosure agreements, copies of share certificates etc". Of that paperwork it says only: "Be advised these documents can look official and genuine." The question most readers ask first is how the caller knew. The Central Bank answers that too, under a second heading, "Beware of new scams": "fraudsters trade contact details with each other, known as 'sucker lists' and take the view that as you have been a victim of a previous scam or fraud that they will be able to persuade you to part with your money again for a new scam or fraud". Read that once more, because it inverts the test most people apply. The caller's knowledge of your loss is not evidence that they are genuine. It is the reason they rang you. An Garda Síochána lists Advance Fee Fraud among the six most common types of fraud in Ireland today, describing it as fraud that "involves criminals targeting victims to make advance or upfront payments for goods, services or financial gains that do not materialize". A recovery scam is that fraud in its purest form, because the thing being paid for in advance is the victim's own money.

• •Anyone who has already lost money to a scam of any kind. The Central Bank states that if you have been a victim "you are likely to be targeted again"
• •People whose contact details were handed over during the original scam — which is almost every victim, because the Central Bank describes fraudsters trading those details on what it calls "sucker lists"
• •Older savers who lost an investment, for whom a second payment comes out of what the first one left
• •Anyone who reported a loss, or spoke about it publicly in a review, a comment or a social-media post
• •People approached about an investment before, who may now be offered what the Central Bank describes as "a completely new investment opportunity with a new firm, website, contact details and personnel"
• •Recent arrivals to Ireland, who may not know what a genuine contact from the Central Bank, the Gardaí or a government department normally looks like

• •It arrives as relief, not as a threat. Every other page on this site teaches you to distrust pressure and urgency; this approach opens by offering to undo a loss you have already taken
• •The caller can quote real details of the original scam, because they hold them. Treating that as proof is the trap the whole scam turns on — the Central Bank's explanation is that "fraudsters trade contact details with each other, known as 'sucker lists'"
• •The paperwork survives a careful look. The Central Bank warns that operators issue "fraudulent papers regarding legal action, non-disclosure agreements, copies of share certificates etc", and that "these documents can look official and genuine"
• •The name on the approach is one you would already trust. The Central Bank says the operators "will often pose as fictitious government agencies"
• •The fee is sized against the sum being "recovered" rather than against your means, so it reads as the last small step rather than as a second loss
• •Having reported the original scam makes the call more plausible, not less: the reader assumes somebody acted on the report
• •It may not mention the old scam at all. The Central Bank describes the re-approach arriving as a completely new opportunity, with a new firm, a new website and new people, which is why "I would spot it a second time" is not the protection it feels like