Inquiry About Fraud and Scams
The most common type of inquiry we get in our investigative division has to do with fraud and scams and Ponzi schemes. We get over 100 calls a day, more than half of them are people that have been scammed out of money, usually because of some Bitcoin scam, an employment scam, a pay-for-activity scam, and they put in money. It usually starts with a little bit, and then they ask for more, then they ask for more. They show you have a big balance, and they say to get your balance, you have to put in money to get the money out. You’ve heard it all before.
Do Scammers Ever Get Caught?
But the question people ask all the time is, do these people ever get caught, or do they get away with it? Well, here’s a great story: One of the scammers, a woman, happened to be in Texas, stole $31 million and got life in prison for a Ponzi scheme. So yeah, people get caught, and they have to pay restitution. There may be funds available for victims, even if the scammer doesn’t have all the money. There may be third parties like insurance companies, vendors, accountants, E&O policies, or government programs that can handle some of the recovery for victims.
The Process of Recovering Funds
The most important thing is knowing that there is a process for the scammers to get caught. Sometimes it takes some work; it takes an investigation to identify who did it. A lot of times they use fake names, fake emails, and even fake pictures, but people do get caught for this, and people do get their money back. You just have to be diligent. You can’t give up on it, and you also can’t fall for another scam. There are a lot of companies out there that are fake recovery companies.
Fake Recovery Companies
Anybody that says, “Pay us money, and we’ll get your money back” is running a scam.
The Truth About Money Recovery
That’s a scam because you can’t pay to get the money back. That’s the same thing that the scammer said to you. They said, “if you give us money, we’ll give you your money back.” What’s the difference? There’s a part of the process of getting money back from a scam that nobody can do except for a court. A court has to sign off on authorization. Nobody can do that. If they say, “if you just pay money, we automatically get your money back,” it’s a complete lie because there’s no way to actually do that. It’s impossible.
Identifying Scammers and Asset Searches
There are ways to do all the other parts of it: finding out the identity of the scammers, documenting the scam, and doing an asset search. You have to find out where the assets are. You can’t say, “give me my money back” unless you can tell the authorities where the money is. You have to tell them where the bank is that you want to take the money from. If you have a writ of garnishment, you can have an investigative agency serve that writ of garnishment, but there’s one part that has to authorize that it’s eligible to get that money back. And that’s the one part nobody can do except for a judge or a court.
Scammers Do Get Caught
We have instructions on how to do that, so be aware of that, but also be less troubled. Some scammers do get caught; they don’t all get away with it. The people who are diligent and pursue these get some kind of justice, so the scammer didn’t get away with their money for nothing.
