Few scams begin with a request to send money. They begin with a text about a charge you didn't make, a match on a dating app, a job offer or a buyer for something you listed, and the transfer comes last, once the story has made it feel urgent and sensible. This guide sets out the ten scripts behind most losses and the giveaway in each, works through the arithmetic of an overpayment scam, and lists what to do in the first hour and the first day if you have already paid. It ends with what US transfer rules can and cannot recover, and the latest FTC and FBI loss figures.
Why do scammers push you to send a transfer?
Transfers are fast, hard to trace across borders and built to be final, which is exactly what a scammer needs.
A card payment can be disputed and a check can bounce, but a wire, a cash-pickup remittance or a crypto transfer usually can't be pulled back once the money is collected or moved on. In the FTC's 2025 data, more money was lost through bank transfers and payments than through any other method, with cryptocurrency second.
Speed is the victim's best tool too. In 2025 the FBI's Recovery Asset Team, which works with banks to stop fraudulent transfers, froze about $679 million of the $1.16 billion that victims reported in time, a 58% success rate. Reports that arrive days later rarely find anything left, especially once the money has crossed a border.
What are the 10 most common money transfer scams?
Ten scripts cover most money transfer fraud, and each pairs a believable pretext with a demand for a payment that is hard to reverse.
Loss figures below come from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which collected just over 1 million complaints in 2025.
1. Government impostors
A caller, text or letter claims to be from a tax office, Social Security, the police, immigration officials or a court, and says you owe a fine or face arrest, deportation or a frozen benefit. Payment is demanded by wire, cash courier, gift card or crypto ATM, often while the caller stays on the line. The FTC says real government employees never ask for payment that way or tell you to keep the call secret. IC3 complaints put 2025 losses at $798 million.
2. Bank and safe-account impostors
A text asks whether you approved a large purchase. Reply, and a caller posing as your bank's fraud team says your account is compromised, then talks you through moving savings to a new safe account, withdrawing cash for a courier or buying gold. Tech-support versions start with a pop-up warning or a refund paid in error. Deposits at an insured bank are already covered by FDIC insurance up to the limit, so no genuine bank needs you to move them. Tech and customer support impostors cost IC3 complainants $2.13 billion.
3. Fake support lines for transfer apps
Search for a transfer company's phone number and the top result can be an ad placed by scammers, a tactic the FTC has warned about. The fake agent offers to fix a stuck transfer, then asks for your login code, installs remote-access software or tells you to send the payment again to a verification account. Take the number from the provider's app, its website typed in by hand, or your receipt.
4. Romance scams
Someone you meet on a dating app, social media or a game builds a relationship over weeks, always with a reason they can't meet or turn on their camera. Then comes an emergency, such as a hospital bill, a customs fee or a ticket home, or an investment they want to share. In FTC data published in April 2026, nearly 60% of people who lost money to a romance scam said it began on social media. IC3 recorded $929 million in confidence and romance losses.
5. Family emergency calls
A frantic call from a grandchild, nephew or friend says they have been arrested, hurt or stranded abroad and need money now, and please don't tell anyone. A second voice may claim to be a lawyer or police officer. Voice-cloning tools let the caller sound exactly like your relative: IC3 counted more than $5 million in 2025 losses to distress scams that used cloned voices. Hang up and call the person, or another relative, on a number you already have.
6. Fake jobs, task scams and money mules
Remote jobs offered by text or a messaging app pay commissions for rating products or processing payments. Some ask you to deposit money to release earnings that never arrive. Others pay you, then ask you to forward money to other accounts, which makes you a money mule for stolen funds. The FBI warns that mules can face prosecution, damaged credit and liability for the money they move, and the FDIC's inspector general notes that many mules don't know the money is criminal. Employment fraud losses reached $363 million.
7. Overpayment and fake checks
A buyer, new employer, tenant or sweepstakes sends a check for more than you are owed and asks you to return the difference by wire, payment app, gift card or crypto. The check looks real and the bank makes the money available within days, but it can take weeks for the bank to learn it is fake. When it bounces, the bank takes the whole amount back from you, and the money you sent on is gone. IC3 logged $22.9 million in overpayment losses; the worked example below shows how fast the damage adds up.
8. Investment and crypto scams
The pitch often starts with a wrong-number text or a friendly contact on social media who later shares a trading platform showing large gains. Those gains exist only on the screen. Victims are told to deposit more, then to pay taxes or fees before they can withdraw, a pattern FinCEN calls pig butchering. It was the costliest scam in both main US data sets for 2025: $8.65 billion in IC3 complaints and $7.9 billion in FTC reports. For scale, a 13-week Treasury bill, among the safest dollar investments, pays a few percent a year, so a platform showing gains of several percent a week is a warning, not an opportunity.
9. Business email compromise
Criminals break into or imitate the email of a supplier, an executive, a law firm or a real estate agent, then send new bank details just before a real payment is due. The invoice or closing statement looks genuine because it often is; only the account number has changed. Businesses and home buyers reported $3.05 billion in losses to this scheme. A phone call to a number you already have, before any payment goes to new details, is the simplest defense.
10. Recovery scams
After a loss, someone offers to get the money back, posing as a lawyer, a government agency, a fund recovery firm or even the company that took it. They need a fee first. The FTC calls these the worst of the worst. In the US, telemarketers may not charge for recovery services until seven business days after delivering the money they recovered, and only licensed attorneys are exempt.
Which red flags give a transfer scam away?
Every script above shares at least one tell: pressure to act now, a payment that can't be reversed, or a request to keep it secret.
| Scheme | Usual opening | Payment it pushes | The giveaway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Government impostor | Call or text threatening arrest, deportation or a frozen benefit | Wire, cash courier, gift cards, crypto ATM | An official demanding instant payment by phone |
| Bank or safe-account impostor | Text about a purchase you didn't make, then a call | Transfer to a new account, cash for a courier, gold | A bank asking you to move money to protect it |
| Fake support line | A number from a search ad or pop-up | Login codes, remote access, a repeat payment | Support that needs your one-time passcode |
| Romance | Dating app or social media contact who can't meet | Wire, gift cards or crypto for an emergency | Money requests from someone you haven't met in person |
| Family emergency | Panicked call, possibly in a cloned voice | Wire, cash pickup or a courier | A plea for secrecy and speed |
| Fake job or task | Unsolicited offer by text or messaging app | Deposits to release pay, or forwarding money | A job that pays you to move money |
| Overpayment | A buyer, employer or tenant sends too much | Refund of the difference by wire, app or gift card | Any request to send back part of a payment |
| Investment or crypto | Wrong-number text, then a trading platform | Deposits to a wallet address or kiosk they supply | Withdrawals blocked until you pay a fee |
| Business email compromise | Email with new bank details for a real invoice | Wire or ACH to the new account | Payment details changed by email alone |
| Recovery | Offer to get lost money back | An upfront fee | Payment before anything is recovered |
Two more checks apply to any request. An exchange rate far better than the mid-market rate in our currency converter is bait, not a bargain: legitimate providers quote below the mid-market rate, as our guide to exchange-rate markups shows, so a better-than-market offer usually means the money will never arrive. And a small payment from a new contact proves nothing. The FTC warns never to send money to anyone you haven't met in person, even if they sent you money first.
How does an overpayment scam empty a bank account?
The trick works because banks must let you use deposited check money within days, long before they learn whether the check is good.
Under the Federal Reserve's Regulation CC, a bank must make the first $275 of a day's check deposits available on the next business day and most of the rest by the second business day. Longer holds are allowed for new accounts, deposits over $6,725 in a day and checks the bank has reason to doubt. Available is not the same as paid: a counterfeit check can come back unpaid weeks later, and the bank then reverses the deposit.
Worked example: Selling a bike for $450 and losing $2,027
Lena lists a bike for $450. The buyer mails a check for $2,450, says his assistant added the shipper's $2,000 by mistake and asks her to send that amount to the shipper through a money transfer service. She has $800 in her account. Assume the transfer service charges $12 and her bank charges $15 for a returned check; both fees are illustrative.
- Monday: she deposits the check, and her balance shows $3,250
- Tuesday: $275 of the deposit becomes available
- Wednesday: the rest is available, so she sends $2,000 plus the $12 fee, leaving $1,238
- Two weeks later: the check is returned as counterfeit, the bank reverses the $2,450 and charges $15, so the balance is $1,238 − $2,450 − $15 = −$1,227
- Her loss: from $800 to −$1,227 is $2,027, which is the $2,000 she sent plus $27 in fees, and the bike too if she handed it over
Had she asked the transfer service to cancel within 30 minutes of paying, before the money was collected, US rules would have required a full refund, including the fee. Waiting until the bank confirmed the check had actually been paid, not just made available, would have stopped the scam altogether.
What should you do in the first hour after paying a scammer?
Call the company that moved the money, on a number you find yourself, and ask it to stop, recall or cancel the payment immediately.
Stop paying and stop talking
Hang up, stop replying and don't send a final payment to release the money or cover a fee. Scammers often ask for more once the first transfer works.
Call your bank or transfer provider
Use the number on your card, statement, app or receipt, never one the scammer gave you. Say the payment was fraud and ask for a stop, a recall from the receiving bank or a reversal. IC3 advises contacting your financial institution immediately and asking it to request a recall.
Cancel a remittance inside the 30-minute window
For a transfer a US consumer sends abroad through a covered provider, the provider must cancel it if you ask up to 30 minutes after paying, for a full refund (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as of Nov 1, 2026), as long as the money hasn't yet been collected or deposited. The refund, including fees, is due within three business days.
Use the right channel for the payment method
Card payments can be disputed with the card issuer. For gift cards, call the card company with the card and the store receipt. For crypto, tell the exchange you sent from, and record the transaction ID and the receiving address; crypto transfers usually can't be reversed.
Report to IC3 and the FTC
File at IC3.gov whatever the amount, with dates, amounts, account numbers, wallet addresses and the transfer reference. Then report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Outside the US, report to your national police or fraud reporting agency as well as the provider.
What should you do within 24 hours?
Once the payment is reported, secure your accounts and identity, keep the evidence and warn the people around you, because scammers often come back.
- Lock down accounts. Change passwords for email, banking and transfer apps, turn on two-step sign-in, and remove any remote-access app a support agent had you install.
- Protect your identity. If you shared a Social Security number, ID photos or account numbers, report it at IdentityTheft.gov for a recovery plan.
- Keep the evidence. Save receipts, transfer references, chat screenshots, phone numbers, email addresses and wallet addresses. Law enforcement may ask for them later.
- Put the claim in writing. Follow up the phone call to your bank or provider with a written fraud claim, and note the claim or recall reference.
- Stop any mule activity. If you were asked to receive and forward money, stop, don't send or return funds yourself, and tell your bank, as the FDIC's inspector general advises.
- Expect a recovery pitch. Anyone who contacts you offering to retrieve the money for a fee is running scam number 10.
- Tell family and colleagues. The FTC says scammers buy and trade lists of people who have already paid, so a warning can stop the next attempt.
Do remittance rules protect you if you were tricked?
Only partly: US error rules fix a provider's mistakes and some kinds of theft, but not a payment you chose to send to someone who lied to you.
Under the CFPB's Remittance Rule, these are errors a provider must investigate and fix: the recipient got less than the receipt promised, the money arrived late or not at all, it went to the wrong account, or someone other than your named recipient collected a cash pickup by fraud. You have 180 days from the date the receipt said the money would be available (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as of Nov 2, 2026) to report one. When the provider confirms the error, you choose between a refund and a free redelivery, and the fees for the failed transfer come back too.
What the rule doesn't cover is the most common scam outcome: the money reached exactly the person you named, who then vanished. That isn't an error. Transfers of $15 or less fall outside the rule, as do business payments and transfers through providers that made 500 or fewer remittances in both the previous and the current year. Our guide to remittance transfer rights walks through the claim procedure.
A different rule helps when you didn't make the payment at all. Regulation E calls an electronic transfer unauthorized when someone else starts it without your authority, such as a thief using your stolen card or hacked app login. Your share of the loss is capped at $50 if you report within two business days of learning a card or code was stolen, and can reach $500 after that. Report unfamiliar transfers within 60 days of the statement that shows them, or you can be liable for later ones. A payment you sent yourself, however you were deceived, falls outside this definition.
How much money do Americans lose to transfer scams?
Reported losses hit records in 2025 in both main US data sets, and investment scams were the costliest category in each.
Fraud losses reported to the FTC reached $15.9 billion in 2025, from 3 million fraud reports (Federal Trade Commission, as of Nov 2, 2026). A year earlier the total was just over $12 billion, and losses are nearly 430% higher than in 2020. Impostors generated the most reports, more than 1 million with over $3.5 billion lost, while investment scams cost the most, $7.9 billion.
Losses reported to IC3 reached $20.9 billion in 2025, from 1,008,597 complaints (FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), as of Nov 2, 2026), 26% more than in 2024, with an average loss of $20,699 per complaint. People aged 60 and over filed 201,266 of those complaints and lost $7.7 billion. Cryptocurrency featured heavily: $11.37 billion lost across 181,565 complaints in 2025, a 22% rise in losses from 2024.
| Scheme in IC3 data | Complaints, 2025 | Reported losses, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Investment fraud | 72,984 | $8.65 billion |
| Business email compromise | 24,768 | $3.05 billion |
| Tech and customer support impostors | 47,794 | $2.13 billion |
| Confidence and romance | 23,159 | $929 million |
| Government impersonation | 32,424 | $798 million |
| Employment fraud | 24,688 | $363 million |
| Overpayment | 2,194 | $22.9 million |
Both totals understate the damage, because they count only what people report. Allowing for unreported fraud, the FTC estimated that losses in 2024 alone could have reached $195.9 billion. The two data sets come from separate reporting channels and can overlap, so adding them together would double count some losses.
Habits that make transfers harder to hijack
A few habits defeat most of the scripts above, because each one takes control of the conversation or the payment away from the scammer.
- Verify on a second channel. Before paying anyone who contacted you, and always before paying new bank details, call back on a number from your contacts, the provider's app or a statement.
- Agree on a family code word. A question only real relatives can answer beats a cloned voice.
- Never share a one-time passcode, and never install software because a caller asks.
- Treat urgency and secrecy as the warning sign. Real banks and agencies give you time and are happy for you to tell someone.
- Hold on to every transfer receipt. It shows the reference number and the promised delivery date, both of which any later claim will need.
Crypto-specific schemes such as fake exchanges and wallet drainers are covered in our crypto hub and its guide to crypto scams. For the rest of the process, from comparing quotes to checking that a provider is licensed, see our guide to sending money internationally.