A familiar organization name or caller ID does not prove that a financial request is genuine. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warns that imposters can spoof caller ID and pressure people to send hard-to-reverse payments such as gift cards, wires, or cryptocurrency. Read the FTC’s imposter-scam guidance and phone-scam guidance; reporting contacts and payment-recovery procedures depend on country and payment rail. The practical steps below begin with checking through a separate channel instead of trusting the message itself.

Before you send money or a code

  • 1. Pause the conversation and do not accept a deadline set by the caller. Avoid its links and callback number; do not share a one-time code, password, or screen. Open the institution’s known app or type its official web address on a separate device.
  • 2. Call a number you already trust, such as the one on your bank card or a prior statement. Do not use the number in the incoming message, caller ID, or a newly supplied “special desk.” If the request concerns a relative, verify with a number you used before.
  • 3. Notice the payment method. A demand to pay only by gift card, wire, crypto, or payment app—or to move funds to a supposed “safe account”—is a serious warning. It is a reason to stop and verify, not by itself a legal finding about a particular sender.
  • 4. Preserve the original message, account name, transaction reference, and time. Keep that record for the real institution; never post account numbers or verification codes publicly.

A hypothetical call

Suppose someone claiming to be a bank security agent says your account is at risk and orders you to move the full balance to a new “protected account” immediately. End the call even if the displayed number looks familiar. Call the number on your card and ask whether the instruction is real. Until independently confirmed, do not transfer funds or read out a texted code. If you already sent money, contact the bank’s official fraud team immediately and ask whether it can stop, recall, or trace the transfer; then ask which local authorities should receive a report. This example is a response plan, not a promise that a transfer can be recovered.

If you already shared information

Contact the payment provider at once to ask about freezing a card, stopping a transfer, or securing the account. Change a reused password from a trusted device and enable multifactor authentication where available. Report the incident through the police, financial institution, and consumer-protection channel serving your location. The FTC’s reporting site applies to U.S. incidents and is not a substitute for local reporting elsewhere. A calm pause and an independently sourced contact number are useful even when the request later turns out to be legitimate.

The FTC recovery guide advises contacting the bank, card issuer or payment service promptly to ask about reversal or refund, changing compromised passwords wherever reused, and enabling multifactor authentication. Record payment method ____ / transaction time and amount ____ / case reference ____ / next action and deadline ____. Independently verify any new contact offering recovery in return for an upfront fee.