Recovery Room Scheme
What is a Recovery Room Scheme?
Scammers know victims of investment fraud want their money back. They intentionally target scam victims with a false promise to recover their lost funds.
A recovery room scheme is when a victim is scammed more than once. First, they lose money to a scam. Next, someone says they can help them recover that money for a fee. It may be the same fraudster in both circumstances, or it may be separate scammers. The investor is instructed to pay for the “recovery of funds.” Unfortunately, the perpetrators take the money and the investor loses again.
How Does a Recovery Room Scheme Work?
Recovery rooms may have professional-looking websites to build legitimacy. These websites often make false claims of successfully recovered money for other victims.
Fraudsters may contact previous investment scam victims by telephone, email, or social media and claim to the victim they can recover funds lost in a previous investment scam. Fraudsters will tell victims there’s a fee for their services and, in some cases, will ask for remote access to their computer or device. Ultimately, more funds are stolen and no money is returned to the victim.
Watch out for these characteristics of recovery room schemes:
- Websites, phone calls, text messages, and online or social media advertisements promising to recover money lost to investments or fraud.
- Fake testimonials posted by fake victims on online forums (saying, for example, “this firm helped me get my money back”).
- Someone who claims they’re with the police, government, bank, or securities regulator.
- Someone who knows details about your lost money without connecting beforehand.
- A fee is required to recover money.