As more and more people go online worldwide, the potential pool of scam victims increases. The same is true of the number of “smooth operators” who think they can get away with stealing money from more naïve internet users.
Online scams cost more and more money every year. Scammers are bolder and more creative than ever.
Fortunately, law enforcement and asset recovery agencies are better equipped and more capable than ever to track down cybercrime. Recovering lost funds often involves subpoenas and other legal artifices the victims may not know how to navigate. Companies like CNC Intelligence Inc. can help with legal expertise.
If you lose money to a cryptocurrency scam, you may believe your funds are gone for good. We trace cryptocurrency worldwide. And once we locate those who stole your digital assets, we work with local authorities, within the framework of local laws, to reclaim your money.
CNC Intelligence Inc. works with experts in local and international law to facilitate the recovery of your digital assets. We liaise with local police and go through the legal procedures that allow us to reclaim funds you couldn’t claw back otherwise.
Types of Online Scams
Cryptocurrencies have made it easier for online criminals to transfer money from their victims to their pockets. Cryptocurrencies are involved in many types of online scams, though not all online scams revolve around them.
Copycat Sites Masquerading as Government Portals
Scammers like to set up websites that look like legitimate government portals. Through these sites, they charge people fees for services that are normally free. They “help” people get passports and other personal identification documents.
Some do indeed process requests. Others charge a fee but do not do anything in return.
Romance Scams
It seems like most of us are suckers to some degree when it comes to romance. Some people cannot resist the lure of love, regardless of how unlikely its source is. They fall in love with people who do not exist and send them money to help them with their bills or plane tickets to come and see them.
Skilled scammers can get many payments out of their victims before the latter realize they’ve been had and accept the sad truth.
Holiday Frauds
Human interactions require trust. The police and other authorities are enforcers of trust in various transactions. When there is a vast geographical distance between two parties, enforcing trust becomes difficult.
Holiday scammers “sell” their victims accommodations that do not exist. They pocket the advance payments and disappear. These scams can be cruel. Sometimes, the victims only find out they’ve been swindled when they arrive at the destination and realize no one has ever registered their booking there.
Phishing
Scammers may send you emails posing as your bank or cryptocurrency hot wallet provider. They will tell you that you must take urgent action to avoid compromising your account or losing your cryptocurrency assets. They want to instill urgency to cloud your judgment.
They may send you links leading to websites that look like the legitimate sites of your bank or wallet provider. As soon as you use your login credentials to access your accounts, the criminals steal them and use them to access and steal your funds.
Pharming
Scammers may infect your computer with viruses that redirect you to fake sites when you enter a legitimate URL. Thus, they can create a “clone” of your bank’s legitimate website and steal your account/login information.
Some scammers will resort to open blackmail. Others will try to convince you that they have accessed your webcam and got footage of you watching porn websites. They may demand a ransom to refrain from posting allegedly sensitive information.
In all these cases, if you pay the criminals, you give them the green light to target you with further scams. Paying blackmailers will only embolden them to ask for more money.
The rule of thumb is to never send anyone you don’t know any money. Turn money transfers into a red line for yourself. As soon as someone demands money, regardless of the story that surrounds it and the circumstances, know that you are dealing with a scam.
Why Taking Legal Action is Essential
Taking legal action against scammers allows you to protect your accounts, funds, and identity from further damage. As soon as you fall victim to a scam and pay the criminals, you turn yourself into a juicy target. The people who scammed you and other criminals will seek to inflict further damage on your finances.
By taking legal action as soon as possible, you give yourself the best chance to recover the funds you lost to the scam.
Here are some steps to consider in this situation.
- Do not pay any more money under any circumstances, regardless of what the scammers promise you.
- Collect all documents and information about the scam(s).
- Protect your accounts. Change passwords, log credit card fraud reports, etc.
- Report the crime to the authorities and contact a recovery specialist.
- Learn your lesson and implement changes in your online behavior that make you more fraud-resistant.
Scammers are always legally liable to their victims, but if locating them takes too long, they may be bankrupt when the law catches up with them. Timely legal action gives you the best chance to recover at least some of the funds you lost.
The Legal Process of Recovering Money from Scammers
As a scam victim, you can choose to pursue the recovery of your stolen funds through civil recovery or criminal prosecution.
Civil recovery relies on civil courts to issue orders that enable victims to recover losses. The orders issued in one country are often valid internationally. Civil recovery places the civil burden of proof on the victim, which is easier to satisfy than the criminal burden of proof.
The goal of civil recovery is to:
- Obtain information and satisfy the civil burden of proof.
- Freeze the stolen assets
- Obtain recovery orders and proceed with the recovery of the funds.
Criminal prosecution is an alternative to civil recovery, but it robs the victim of control, handing it to the prosecution authorities.
Our legal experts can advise and assist victims in taking legal action against online scammers. We liaise with local authorities in many countries and can help victims chase their funds across international borders. We have experience obtaining favorable recovery orders and facilitating the recovery process.
Civil recovery may be able to recover its costs from the fraudsters. It is also a legal action option that lends itself well to class action when the circumstances facilitate it.
Taking legal action against online scams is the fastest and most effective way to recover assets lost to fraud.
If you are the victim of a scam, CNC Intelligence can help you take legal action. Do not hesitate. With online scams, time works against the victim. Reach out now.
We offer complimentary consultations in order to determine if our Asset Recovery and Intelligence Services are right for your case.