The Expert Podcast

…So how much can you get back If you've lost money in a fraud Let's say if you are. A victim of some kind of online scam or a cryptocurrency scam or investment scam. And you sent money to some. Company or person that you thought was going to make you a profit and turns out to be a scam? How much can you get back? Well this is an important. Example of what your limitations are This is an article. from attorney. There are law firms Sheppard Mullin Victor and Hampton. We're not attorneys not giving legal advice but we see this all the time when we do asset search investigations, this is the kind of thing that we see in getting back these losses from online scams. So this third circuit court gave a definition of a loss. And this definition is a win for defendants meaning for the criminals. Here's why…The definition of a loss does not include intended loss. What does that mean? Well, let's look at this example, let's suppose that you find some. online investments scam on…social media. And they tell you to send them. $10,000 and you send them 10,000 and then they say look, your account went up to $18,000 You made an 8,000 profit. Send us another 10,000. And you'll make even more money So now you send them another 10,000 and it says your account shows 52,000 now. Right. And then they ask you for more money and then you get scared and say wait this is a scam I want my money back And then they disappear right Oversimplified But let's say that happens. How much is your loss Is it 52,000 or is it 20,000? Well, What this court case says. Is that your loss is only actually what you sent them. It's not the 52,000 That was kind of a fake Statement. It's also not what you may have missed out on putting your money somewhere else You can't say well if I put that 20,000 into this other deal I would've had 25,000 So you owe me that five two for. The opportunity cost. What this case says, and this has to do with sentencing of criminals, but it's basically the same thing The loss is only the actual loss. And the government may only use evidence of actual loss to establish punishment for fraudulent conduct. Right. So this is used for sentencing. So if, if the laws that states say well, if you stole 20,000 you get five to 10 years in prison but if you stole 50,000, you get. 10 to 20 years in prison. Well then what this case says is. it goes by the 20 it doesn't go by the 52. Right. So if you are a victim, remember you're probably only going to be able to look to recover your actual losses What you actually set them no more. You're not going to be able to get Your paper loss from what it showed on the statement, you're not going to be able to get back other costs that you lost out on other investments. again we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice but this is an example of what the courts say about actual losses versus hypothetical losses. Now there are some exception to this in one case. the sixth circuit. Said that a minimum loss of 500 must apply to every gift card stolen by defendant regardless of the actual harm or amount on the card. So. This is one where it can actually be more than the actual loss. They said that the use of loss was ambiguous to 500 minimum loss was unreasonable because it fell outside any potential zone of ambiguous ambiguity…What this also does is on the criminal side It takes away. another tool that the prosecutors have. If loss is only defined by actual loss, then conspiracy counts may not be the heavy hammer than it was. Prosecutors may not be able to do as much conspiracy if the loss is only goes by what was actually taken not be, the false inflated profits So if you're a victim of online scam, Be aware that calculate it from the actual money you sent them, not from what the statements they sent to you which are probably fake anyways.