Lost most of my savings to someone I met online. Now "recovery agents" keep messaging me

#1Walt F(Joined Jan 2026 · 7 posts)April 6, 2026, 7:53 pm

I'll keep the first part short because typing it out still isn't easy. Over eight months I sent most of my savings to a woman I believed I was in a relationship with. It ended in March when the story finally fell apart, and I reported everything through the proper channels the same week. I'm 61. My kids don't know yet.

Here's why I'm actually posting. Since I mentioned what happened in an online support group, I've been getting messages, two or three a week now. "Asset recovery specialists." "Crypto tracing experts." One had certificates and a case number for me already. They say they've located my funds and can get them back, I just pay a retainer up front.

The honest truth is that part of me wants to believe them, the same part that wanted to believe her. That's exactly why I don't trust myself on this one. Is ANY of this recovery stuff real?

#2Grace H(Joined Mar 2025 · 31 posts)April 6, 2026, 9:35 pm

Walt, first: posting this took nerve, and you've already done the hardest, smartest thing by noticing that "wanting to believe" feeling and standing back from it. That instinct will protect you from here on.

My cousin was where you are two years ago. She paid one of those "tracing" firms, twice, because the first fee turned out to need a second fee. The money they'd "located" never existed. She lost again, and the second loss hurt differently, meaner somehow. Please don't send those people a cent.

#3David MercerModerator(Joined Jan 2025 · 214 posts)April 8, 2026, 9:17 am

Walt, I run this site because a scam took the better part of my savings a few years ago, so what follows comes from the same chair you're sitting in.

Those messages are not a coincidence and they are not help. When you were scammed, your details almost certainly went onto a list of people known to have paid, and that list gets sold. The people buying it know you're hurting, know roughly what you lost, and have a script built for exactly the hope you just described so honestly. The tells are always the same: they contact you (real investigators don't cold-message victims), they've already "found" your money, they guarantee recovery, and there's always an upfront fee, a retainer, a tax, a release charge, with one more fee behind it. I got those messages too, and the week I was closest to answering one was the week I felt most ashamed and most alone. That's the state they're fishing in.

The site has a full breakdown in recovery scams, the second wave, including what legitimate routes actually look like, and the short version is: anything real runs through the reports you already filed and your bank, moves slowly, and never asks you to pay to receive. One more thing, because nobody said it to me early enough: telling your kids will probably go better than the version in your head. Mine is the same story with a different amount, and the shame turned out to be the only part I could get rid of quickly.

#4tomd52(Joined Jun 2025 · 15 posts)April 9, 2026, 12:02 pm

Seconding every word. Block them as they come, report the accounts to the platform, and mention it to the support group's moderators too, if you got found there, others in that group are being worked over right now as well.

#5Walt F(Joined Jan 2026 · 7 posts)June 14, 2026, 8:40 pm

Update, two months on. Blocked and reported every one of them, told the group moderators, and it turned out two other members were getting near-identical messages, same "case number" format and everything. The mods put up a warning post.

Told my daughter last month. David was right, the conversation in my head was worse than the one at her kitchen table. Money's still gone and some nights are still bad, but I'm sleeping, and nobody has a hook in me anymore. Thanks, all of you.