Fake recovery services: how to tell a real investigation from a second scam

Why victims are targeted twice

Contact details of fraud victims circulate between criminal groups, and a person who has already lost money to a fake platform is a known, motivated target. Approaches arrive by email, WhatsApp, Telegram, or as replies under complaint posts — often within days of the original loss, sometimes claiming to be from a regulator, a law firm or an "on-chain forensics unit".

Red flags that settle it

Any single one of these is enough to walk away:

• A guarantee that your funds will be recovered. Nobody can reverse a on-chain transaction.
• A fee framed as a "tax", "unlocking fee", "gas top-up" or "customs charge" before anything is delivered.
• A request for your seed phrase, private key, exchange password or 2FA code — never necessary for tracing.
• A request to install remote access software such as AnyDesk or TeamViewer.
• Payment demanded in crypto to a personal wallet, or to an individual rather than a company account.
• They contacted you first, out of the blue, about a loss you never reported to them.
• No verifiable company registration, no registered office, and a domain created weeks ago.

Checks you can run in ten minutes

Verify the company in the official register of its stated country — in the UK that is Companies House, where you can see the incorporation date, registered office and officers. Check that the email domain matches the company's own domain rather than a free mailbox. Ask for the deliverable and the price in writing before paying anything, and confirm whether the fee depends on outcome. Look up the domain's age. Finally, ask what happens if your case turns out not to be traceable — a straight answer to that question is a good signal.

How we work, so you can compare

Secwall is the trading name of SWF GROUP LTD, registered in England and Wales under number 16819219, with a registered office in London that you can verify on Companies House. We quote a fixed written fee, never a percentage of hypothetical recovered funds. We never ask for private keys, recovery phrases or exchange passwords, we never take custody of assets, and we tell you before any quote if we believe your case is not traceable. Our emails only ever come from an @secwall.co.uk address.