Can you actually get the money back?
In the UK, more often than people expect — the APP scam reimbursement rules changed the picture in October 2024. But it depends on how the money left, when, and how fast you move. Here is an honest assessment of each route.
The one rule that protects you now
Never pay anything before recovered money has reached you. Not a retainer in crypto, not a "release fee", not a "tax" on frozen funds, not a "bond" to a court you have never heard of. Every one of those is a recovery-room scam, and the timing is what gives it away.
Fees charged after a successful recovery are a different thing entirely — no-win, no-fee arrangements are how much recovery work is funded. The rule is about sequence, not about whether a fee exists at all. And for a claim against your own bank, remember you can do it yourself, for free.
Legitimate firms can be checked on the FCA Register or, for solicitors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority's register — look them up yourself and call the number listed there. Regulators, the Ombudsman and the police never charge.
What each avenue is worth
Payment method is the single biggest predictor of recovery. A UK bank transfer or credit card payment carries real rights; cash, gift cards and crypto sent on from an exchange carry very few.
APP scam reimbursement
Strong for mostIf you were tricked into sending money by Faster Payments or CHAPS from a UK account on or after 7 October 2024, your bank must reimburse up to £85,000 unless you were grossly negligent. Most claims succeed. It does not cover card payments, cash, international transfers, or crypto moved between wallets.
Window: Claim within 13 months of the last payment
Unauthorised payment refund
StrongIf you did not make or agree to the payment — someone took over your account or card — the bank must refund it by the end of the next business day, unless it can show you acted with gross negligence. The burden is on the bank.
Window: Tell your bank without delay, and within 13 months
Credit card: section 75 & chargeback
Often viableSection 75 makes the card provider jointly liable for purchases of £100 to £30,000. Chargeback, which also covers debit cards, is a card-scheme process with strict deadlines. Neither usually helps where you bought crypto and then sent it on to a scammer.
Window: Section 75: up to six years. Chargeback: usually 120 days
Funds freeze & recall
Occasionally viableYour bank can ask the receiving bank to freeze what is left in the mule account, and banks can now hold a suspicious payment for up to four business days. Speed is the entire variable, which is why the first call matters more than any other.
Window: Hours — before the receiving account is emptied
Financial Ombudsman Service
Worth doingFree and independent. If your bank refuses reimbursement, applies an exception unfairly, or ignored obvious warning signs on an older payment, the Ombudsman decides what is fair — and can award up to £455,000. If you accept its decision, the bank is bound by it.
Window: Within six months of the firm's final response
Civil court claim
Strong where assets existThe route that genuinely moves larger sums — if there is an identifiable defendant or traceable asset. Norwich Pharmacal orders and freezing injunctions are the opening moves. Costly, so a solicitor will assess recoverability first.
Window: Six years in England, Wales & NI; five in Scotland
Criminal compensation & confiscation
Slow, partialRequires the offender to be identified, charged, convicted and able to pay. Real, but a long tail rather than a plan. Make a Victim Personal Statement and tell the officer in the case you want compensation considered.
Window: At sentencing, if there is a conviction
Crypto tracing
Case-dependentBlockchain transactions are public and traceable. Recovery depends on funds reaching an exchange that can be ordered by the court to freeze and identify an account. English courts regularly grant such orders against persons unknown; transfers to non-compliant platforms usually end the trail.
Window: Immediately — funds move within hours
Authorised versus unauthorised — the distinction that decides your claim
Every bank claim in the UK starts by asking whether you made the payment yourself. The answer sends it down one of two very different sets of rules.
Unauthorised payments
Someone took over your account or used your card without you. Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 the bank must refund promptly, and your liability is capped at £35 unless you acted with gross negligence — a high bar that the bank has to prove.
Sharing a one-time passcode under pressure from someone posing as your bank is where banks push back hardest. The Ombudsman has often found that being skilfully deceived is not gross negligence — but expect resistance and prepare the timeline carefully.
Authorised push payments
You made the transfer yourself, because you were deceived. For Faster Payments and CHAPS sent on or after 7 October 2024, mandatory reimbursement applies: the bank must repay up to £85,000 unless you were grossly negligent — for example by ignoring a specific, tailored warning from your bank or the police. Customers who were vulnerable at the time are reimbursed even then.
For earlier payments, or ones the rules do not cover, the Supreme Court held in Philipp v Barclays (2023) that a bank generally has no duty to refuse your own instructions. The argument then is whether the bank met its own obligations — did it ignore obvious red flags or mishandle your complaint? The Ombudsman is where that gets tested.
Building the bank claim
- 1Put the claim in writing, even after a phone call — say it is an APP scam reimbursement claim or an unauthorised payment claim, and keep the thread.
- 2List every payment: date, amount, payee name, and the receiving account. The claim covers the whole scam, not just the last transfer.
- 3Say whether anything made you vulnerable at the time — illness, bereavement, financial pressure, age. Vulnerability changes the rules in your favour.
- 4Ask for the warnings and Confirmation of Payee results the bank says it showed you, and for its fraud-monitoring notes.
- 5If it refuses or deducts an excess, ask for the final response letter in writing.
- 6Then go to the Financial Ombudsman Service — free, independent, and no representative required.
An honest word about outcomes
For a UK bank transfer made since October 2024, reimbursement is now the normal outcome rather than the exception. Outside those rules — crypto, cash, international transfers, older payments — most losses are not fully recovered. Funds move through mule accounts and offshore platforms within hours, and many operators sit outside any jurisdiction a UK court can reach. Anyone who tells you otherwise before reviewing your file is selling something.
What does change outcomes: reporting within hours rather than days, keeping complete records, taking a refused bank claim all the way to the Ombudsman rather than stopping at the first no, and getting legal advice early enough that a freezing injunction is still meaningful.
Partial recovery is a real outcome and worth pursuing. So is the part that is not about money — every report feeds the national intelligence picture that leads to takedowns, and it protects the next person in a way nothing else does.
Clone firms and impostor solicitors
Cloned websites carrying real firms' names, FCA reference numbers and real solicitors' details are a standard component of recovery-room fraud. The clone is often a better-looking copy of the genuine site, and the FCA Warning List is full of them.
So before you transfer anything to anyone, confirm you are dealing with who you think you are: find the firm on the FCA Register or the SRA register yourself, and call the number listed there rather than one you were sent. That applies to us as much as to anybody else — our number is on the contact page.
Find out which of these routes is open to you
Which avenue is worth your time depends on how the money left and how long ago. We will assess it with you honestly, including when the answer is that you can claim from your bank yourself, or that recovery is unlikely.
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