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First Steps

What to Do Immediately After Discovering a Scam

The first 48 hours matter. A calm, ordered checklist of the steps that protect your money, your evidence, and your options.

ChargeBack Editorial Team6 min readPublished 10 June 2026Updated 1 July 2026

Discovering that you have been scammed is disorienting. People describe the moment as a mix of disbelief, embarrassment, and panic — and scammers rely on exactly those feelings to keep victims quiet or to extract "one last payment."

This guide is deliberately calm and practical. Work through it in order.

1. Stop all payments — including "release fees"

Whatever the story, stop sending money now. Fraudulent operations commonly invent final obstacles: a tax payment, an anti-money-laundering fee, an account-unlock charge. A legitimate organisation never charges you a fee to return your own money. Every additional payment is new money lost, not a step toward recovery.

If a payment is scheduled or recurring, contact your bank or card issuer to cancel it.

2. Contact your bank or card issuer immediately

Speed genuinely matters. Call the fraud line of every bank, card issuer, or payment service you paid from and tell them plainly: "I believe I have been the victim of fraud." Ask them:

  • Can any recent payments be stopped, recalled, or disputed?
  • Should my account or card be frozen or reissued?
  • What is my case or incident number?

Write down the date, time, the name of the person you spoke to, and the reference number. You will need these details later.

3. Report to the police or your national fraud service

File a report with your local police or your country's fraud-reporting service. You will receive a reference number — keep it. Banks, insurers, and regulators frequently ask for it, and official reports feed the wider investigations that connect cases together.

Reporting is worthwhile even when the scammers appear to be overseas.

4. Preserve everything before it disappears

Fraudulent websites and chat accounts vanish quickly. Before that happens, capture:

  • Screenshots of the website, your account, and any displayed balances
  • The full web addresses (URLs) involved
  • Emails, including full headers where possible
  • Chat conversations — export or screenshot entire threads
  • Bank statements and transfer confirmations
  • Cryptocurrency transaction IDs (hashes) and wallet addresses
  • Names, phone numbers, and account details you were given

Do not edit or annotate the originals. Keep copies in at least two places.

5. Secure your accounts and devices

If you shared identity documents, change the passwords on your email and financial accounts and enable two-factor authentication. If you installed any software at the scammer's request — especially remote-access tools — disconnect the device from the internet and have it checked before using it for banking again.

6. Be ready for the follow-up scam

Fraud victims are frequently targeted a second time by "recovery" operations claiming — sometimes with startling detail about your case — that your funds have been located and can be released for a fee. Treat any unsolicited recovery offer as a scam. No legitimate organisation contacts victims out of the blue with found money.

7. Take stock, then decide next steps

Once the urgent steps are done, you can consider the slower channels: card chargebacks, bank-transfer recalls, complaints to regulators, or independent legal advice. Which of these applies depends on how you paid, where the money went, and how quickly the fraud was reported.

This is the point where an organised case file becomes valuable — and where a structured, honest assessment of your options can save you from both false hope and missed deadlines.

This article is educational information, not legal or financial advice. For decisions about your specific situation, contact your bank, the police, your national regulator, or an independent lawyer.

Where to report and complain in Canada

The official routes for someone who lives in Canada. Report quickly, and keep the file numbers you are given — every one of these bodies works from the evidence you hold.

  • Your local police

    Report the fraud to your local police service — or to the RCMP where it polices your area — and ask for a file or occurrence number. Banks and exchanges often ask for it, and it belongs at the front of your evidence.

  • Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre

    Report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre as well, online or by telephone on 1-888-495-8501. The CAFC asks for reports even from people who have already gone to the police, and from witnesses as well as victims, because it is how patterns across Canada are found.

  • Your bank or card issuer — straight away

    Use the number on the back of your card or on your bank's own website, never one given to you by the person or site involved. Ask the bank to stop further payments and to try to recall or dispute the money, and make a formal complaint. Note the date you complained: it starts the clock for the next step.

  • If your bank says no: OBSI

    The Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments is the free, independent complaints body that every federally regulated bank in Canada must belong to. You can take your complaint to OBSI once 56 days have passed since you first complained to the bank, or sooner if the bank has already given you its final response. Once you have that final response in writing, you have 180 calendar days. Credit unions and caisses populaires are regulated by their province and have their own routes — ask yours which applies.

  • Card payments

    For a credit card, ask the issuer to dispute the charge under the card network's rules, as early as you can — the deadlines run from the date of the transaction. Some provinces' consumer protection laws also let you ask a credit card issuer to reverse the charge for an online purchase that never arrived. For debit card transactions you did not authorise, the Canadian Code of Practice for Consumer Debit Card Services and your bank's own terms limit what you can be held responsible for, provided you did not contribute to the misuse — for example by sharing your PIN.

  • Interac e-Transfers and wire transfers

    A payment you sent yourself is harder to dispute than a card payment, so speed matters most here. Ask your bank at once to contact the receiving bank and try to hold or recall the money. An Interac e-Transfer that has not yet been deposited may still be cancelled — ask your bank immediately.

  • If your identity was used

    Ask Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada to place a fraud alert on your credit file, and check your credit reports for accounts or applications you do not recognise.

General information from each body's published guidance, not advice on Canadian law. Confirm deadlines with the body concerned.

Sources and further reading

Written by ChargeBack Editorial TeamAll resources

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