Romance Scam: What to Do Now, and Can Your Money Be Traced?

Updated 5 October 2026 by Investigation Bureau

If you are reading this with a sinking feeling about someone you met online, deal with the money first and the mystery second. What you do in the first day, with your bank, with the evidence and with the person, matters more to recovery than anything an investigator can do later. Once the losses have stopped, the other questions can be answered: who they really are, where the money went and what can be got back.

Romance fraud is organised crime working from a script. It is not a verdict on you. It catches professionals, sceptics and people whose job is to spot liars, because the script is written to work on human beings. This is your side of it.

The first day

Stop every transfer, including the one "that will fix everything". The script always has one last payment in it: the fee to release funds, the ticket home, the customs charge. There is never a last payment. There is only the next one.
Phone your bank now, before you do anything else. Report the payments as fraud. UK banks work under reimbursement rules for authorised push payment (APP) fraud, and in many cases victims who paid by bank transfer are entitled to be repaid. Claims go better when they are fast and honest. Card payments have their own routes: chargeback, and Section 75 protection on credit cards for qualifying payments.
Preserve everything before the scammer deletes it. Export the chats (WhatsApp lets you do this). Screenshot profiles and listings with the URL and the date showing. Keep every payment reference, email address, phone number and crypto wallet address. A scammer wipes the trail the moment they sense the spell is breaking. Your archive is the case.
Report it to Report Fraud (the national reporting service that replaced Action Fraud) (in Scotland, to Police Scotland on 101) and keep the reference number. Banks and insurers ask for it, and reports link the same scammers across different victims.
Say nothing to the scammer. No accusation and no long goodbye. Confrontation triggers deletion, and the account you would be confronting is rarely run by the face you know.

Can the money actually be traced?

The honest answer: sometimes, and the odds depend on how the money left.

Bank transfers leave the strongest trail. The receiving account is a real account somewhere, often one held by a UK money mule. Banks and police can freeze funds that are still sitting there, which is why speed counts for more than anything else.
Cryptocurrency can be traced on-chain. Payments pass through wallets that analysis can follow to an exchange, and exchanges hold identity records that law enforcement can reach. Traceable does not mean recoverable, though. It is slow work that leans heavily on legal process, and it succeeds mainly where the sums justify it and the trail reaches a regulated exchange.
Gift cards and cash sent by courier are, bluntly, gone. Report them all the same. They are rarely worth chasing.

A UK connection improves the picture a great deal: a UK bank account, a mule based in the UK, a scammer operating locally. Civil recovery against identified account holders then becomes possible alongside the criminal route. Our asset tracing guide explains what lawful financial investigation can and cannot see.

What an investigator actually does in a romance scam case

Identifies who you were really talking to. Reverse-image searches on the photos (usually stolen from an innocent person), linking usernames, numbers and accounts across platforms and, in the minority of cases where the operator is in the UK, putting a real name to the profile. One of our illustrative case stories shows how that comes apart.
Verifies a relationship before more money moves. The most valuable instruction is the early one: a discreet check on whether the person, the job, the address and the story are real. It is quoted as a fixed price in writing before any work begins. If you are being asked for money and something feels rehearsed, verify first.
Builds the evidence file. A documented, chronological package that ties profiles, messages and payments together, written for your bank's fraud team, Report Fraud or civil proceedings, not for sympathy.
Tells you the truth about recovery. Where the trail runs out offshore, we say so before you spend another pound. The first conversation about a cyber investigation is free and confidential, so that question costs you nothing to ask.

When it is your parent, not you

Very often it is an adult child who sees it first: a parent sending money to someone they have never met, and answering, angrily, that the new partner is wonderful. Confronting them head-on almost never works. The script prepares its victims in advance for "interfering family". What works is evidence, delivered gently. A factual verification report is hard to argue with in a way that a worried son or daughter is not. We handle these cases discreetly, and part of the job is helping you deliver the truth without breaking the relationship you are trying to protect.

The second scam: "we can recover your money"

In the weeks after the fraud, expect to hear from a "recovery agent", a "crypto tracing firm" or even a "police unit" offering to get your losses back for a fee paid upfront. These are the same scammers, or their associates, and your name has been sold on from a list of victims. Genuine recovery begins with your bank, Report Fraud and identifiable, regulated professionals. It never begins with an unsolicited message, and never with upfront fees and guaranteed results. An honest firm quotes fixed fees, has an ICO registration you can verify, and will often advise you not to spend money on the chase. We are registered with the ICO as a data controller (ZC259849).

Frequently asked questions

Will my bank refund a romance scam payment?

Fraud by bank transfer (APP fraud) is covered by mandatory UK reimbursement rules that came in late in 2024. Many victims are entitled to repayment, subject to conditions and limits, and a claim should be made promptly. Crypto purchases and cash fall outside those rules, which changes the route to recovery but does not close it. Either way, report to your bank immediately. Delay is what kills claims.

I'm embarrassed. Do I have to tell anyone?

Your bank and Report Fraud, yes, because both can move money and match patterns across scammers. Beyond those two, nobody. Anything you tell us is confidential. This fraud takes in people whose work is spotting liars, and shame is part of its design: it is what keeps victims paying quietly.

The person says they're in the UK. Does that help?

A great deal, if it is true. Operators and mule accounts in the UK can be identified, and both the police and the civil courts can reach them. A claim to be in the UK is also cheap to test, and the check is quick.

How much does an investigation cost against what I lost?

Verification and identification work is scaled to the depth required and quoted as a fixed price in writing, after a free, confidential first conversation. We size the work to what can realistically be recovered, and we tell you plainly when the economics do not justify going further.

Sent money to someone you are no longer sure is real. Tell an investigator about it in confidence: free, no obligation and no judgement. Send a confidential enquiry and we reply within one working day.