Contain the damage, then rebuild
Money is rarely the only thing taken. Identity data, account access and confidence all need attention — and the third one matters more than people expect.
Protecting your credit and identity
If any identity document, National Insurance number or account login was exposed, treat it as compromised and work through all five steps rather than waiting for something to go wrong.
Check your credit reports with all three agencies
Experian, Equifax and TransUnion operate independently, and a lender may check only one. You have a legal right to see your report free of charge, and each agency offers free ongoing access. Look for accounts, searches and addresses you do not recognise, and dispute anything unfamiliar in writing.
Consider Cifas Protective Registration
The UK has no credit freeze. The nearest equivalent is Protective Registration: a warning on your name that tells banks and lenders using Cifas to carry out extra identity checks before opening anything in your name. It costs £30 for two years. Expect applications of your own to take a little longer while it is in place.
Report stolen or exposed identity documents
If a passport or driving licence was photographed, lost or handed over, report it so the document is cancelled. A cancelled passport cannot be used to travel, and flags are shared with organisations that check identity documents.
Tell HMRC if tax or benefits may be affected
A National Insurance number is never reissued, so an exposed one has to be watched rather than replaced. Identity theft can lead to false tax returns, refunds or benefit claims in your name. Check your personal tax account for employment or income you do not recognise, and report scam contact to HMRC.
Protect your property title
If you own a home or land in England or Wales, HM Land Registry's free Property Alert service emails you if someone tries to register a sale or mortgage against it. Owners of property they do not live in, or that has no mortgage, can also ask for a restriction so the Land Registry needs a solicitor's certificate before registering a sale.
Go to each organisation's website by typing its address yourself — never from a search advertisement, and never from a link or number given to you by someone who contacted you. Credit agencies and Cifas will never phone you to sell protection.
Hardening what is left
Assume the fraudster kept everything they learned about you, and that it will be reused or resold. Close the paths they already know.
- Change passwords from a device you know is clean, starting with email — it is the reset path for everything else.
- Turn on two-step verification everywhere, preferring an authenticator app or passkey over text messages.
- Remove any remote-access software the fraudster had you install, and run a full security scan.
- Review account recovery settings: forwarding rules, backup emails, and phone numbers that may have been changed.
- Check for unfamiliar devices or sessions signed in to your bank, email and crypto accounts.
- Turn on payment and login alerts in your banking app so unusual activity reaches you in real time.
- Ask your mobile network to add a password or PIN to your account, to make a SIM swap or number port harder.
- Register free with the Telephone Preference Service. Scammers ignore it — but that makes any cold call you still get easier to recognise.
Expect a second approach
Being defrauded once makes you a more valuable target, not a less valuable one. Details of who paid, how much and through what channel are traded between operations.
Assume any unsolicited contact is hostile
If someone contacts you about a loss you never told them about, they got your details from the fraud. That is true whether they claim to be a recovery firm, a solicitor, the FCA, Report Fraud, a police force, or the platform itself.
End the contact, look up the organisation independently, and call the number on their official site if you want to verify. Never use a number, link or contact given to you by the person who reached out.
The one exception is a call you arranged. If you booked an appointment with us, our call is expected — and it still has to pass the same checks. Same rule as everyone else: verify it against a number you looked up, not one you were given.
How to verify a call from us →The tells are consistent
An up-front fee of any kind. A guarantee. Claims that your funds are "located" and merely need a release payment. Pressure to act before a deadline. A request to keep it confidential from your bank or family.
Any single one of these is enough. Real recovery work is slow, documented, and never promises an outcome in advance.
The part nobody prepares you for
Fraud victims frequently describe grief, insomnia, and a specific kind of shame that makes reporting feel worse than staying silent. Where the fraud involved a relationship built over months, the loss is genuinely a bereavement as well as a financial event, and treating it as only the latter tends to prolong it.
None of this reflects poor judgement. These operations are professionally run, heavily scripted, and iterated against thousands of people. They are designed by specialists to defeat exactly the caution you are now blaming yourself for not having.
Victim Support, Victim Support Scotland and Victim Support NI provide free, confidential emotional and practical help, and you do not need to have reported to the police to use them. If you are in crisis, call Samaritans free on 116 123 at any hour, or text SHOUT to 85258.
If you are helping someone else
Lead with belief rather than with what they should have noticed. People who feel judged stop disclosing, and partial disclosure is what allows a fraud to continue — often for months after the family first suspects something.
Practical help lands better than advice: sit with them while they call the bank, help assemble the evidence folder, help them make the Report Fraud report. If they are still in contact with the fraudster, pushing for an abrupt cut-off can backfire — focus first on stopping outgoing payments and on getting the report made. Age UK's free advice line (0800 678 1602) can help with older relatives.
You do not have to work through this alone
Whether the fraud was last week or last year, a conversation costs nothing and usually clarifies more than a week of searching. We will tell you plainly if there is nothing worth pursuing.
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