The fake refund
You are told about money that is owed to you: an overpayment, a benefit, or the recovery of what a scam has already taken from you. And to receive it, you have to put up a fee or allow access to your device. The rule is simple: a refund is never paid for.
The bait
Hope, often the hope of getting back a sum already lost.
The signs
None is proof on its own. One is enough to stop.
- You have to pay something to receive something: a refund is never paid for
- You are asked for remote access to your device so that the transfer can be made
- You are asked for your full credentials, when a refund needs nothing but a reference
- The approach arrives just after a scam: victim lists circulate, and the second wave is a trade of its own
- The body named does exist, but the channel is not the one it usually writes to you through
The reflex, in this order
- Never pay a fee in advance to receive money.
- Grant no remote access to your device.
- Check directly with the body itself, through the channel you normally use.
- If you have already been a victim, expect this second contact and treat it as the next step of the same trap.
If it has already happened
Nobody gets caught out of stupidity: these traps are built to work. What matters now is the order of the steps.
- Cut the remote access and restart the device, then change your codes from another device.
- Have the payment methods involved blocked.
- Report it to the authorities in your country: the link between the two attempts is useful information.
Who is targeted
- Adults
- Parents, teachers, carers
This page describes the trap so that it can be recognised. It deliberately gives no script, no message template and no tool: enough to defend yourself, never enough to run it again.
Sources
- Over 5,800 arrests, USD 293 million intercepted in global fraud bust (Operation First Light 2026), INTERPOL · Checked on
This trap often arrives just after another one. Lists of people already targeted circulate, and that is what makes this second wave possible: whoever offers to recover your money is sometimes the same person who took it.