The Expert Podcast

The most common type of inquiry we get in our investigative division has to do with fraud, scams, and Ponzi schemes. We get over 100 calls a day; more than half of them are people who have been scammed out of money, usually because of some Bitcoin scam, an employment click scam, or a pay-for-activity scam. They put in money, usually starting with a little bit, and then they are asked for more. They are shown a big balance and told that to get their balance, they have to put in more money to get the money out.

You've heard it all before, but the question people ask all the time is, do these people ever get caught, or do they get away with it? Well, here's a great story: one of the scammers, a woman in Texas, stole $31 million and got life in prison for a Ponzi scheme. So yes, people do get caught, and they have to pay restitution. There may be funds available for victims, even if the scammer doesn't have all the money. There may be third parties like insurance companies, vendors, accountants, or government programs that can handle some of the recovery for victims.

The most important thing is knowing that there is a process for the scammers to get caught. Sometimes it takes some work; it takes an investigation to identify who did it. A lot of times, they use fake names, fake emails, and fake pictures, but people do get caught for this, and people do get their money back. You just have to be diligent—you can't give up on it, and you also can't fall for another scam. There are a lot of companies out there that are fake recovery companies.

Anybody that says, “Pay us money, and we'll get your money back,” that's a scam. That's a scam because you can't pay to get the money back. That's the same thing the scammer said to you: if you give us money, we'll give you your money back. What's the difference? There’s a part of the process of getting money back from a scam that nobody can do except for a court. A court has to sign off on authorization. Nobody can do that. If they say, “If you just pay money, we automatically get your money back,” it’s a complete lie because there's no way to actually do that; it’s impossible.

There are ways to do all the other parts of it—finding out the identity of the scammers, documenting the scam, and doing an asset search. You have to find out where the assets are. You can't say, “Give me my money back,” unless you can tell the authorities where the money is. You have to tell them where the bank is that you want to take the money from. If you have a writ of garnishment, you can have an investigative agency serve that writ of garnishment, but there's one part that has to authorize that it’s eligible to get that money back, and that’s the one part nobody can do except for a judge or a court. We have instructions on how to do that, so be aware of that.

But also be kind of less troubled that some scammers do get caught; they don’t all get away with it. The people who are diligent and pursue these cases get some kind of vengeance that the scammer didn’t get away with their money for nothing. If you like this video, be sure to click on a few others on our channel to see if there's other information that might be helpful to you about this same subject or maybe even other related subjects that could assist you with your resolution of your issue.