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Losing money to an investment fraud is not a failure of judgement. These schemes are run by organised groups with scripts, call centres, professionally built platforms and months of patience. People who work in finance fall for them. So do lawyers. The shame that follows is one of the reasons the offence is so under-reported — and it is worth setting aside, because the next steps are practical ones.
In short
After an investment fraud: make no further payments, secure all evidence, inform your bank and have your claims assessed. A criminal complaint can lead to assets being secured; civil claims run against the perpetrators and, in some cases, along the payment route. The earlier you act, the better payment flows can be traced.
How do I know I have been defrauded?
The clearest sign is the reversal at payout: money goes in easily, and coming out requires another payment. Alongside that, a few patterns recur across almost every case.
- The payout is blocked. Withdrawal requests are delayed, tied to conditions, then made dependent on “taxes”, “fees” or a “deposit”.
- The returns were never real. Account statements and dashboards are produced by the provider itself and can show anything at all.
- The provider becomes hard to reach. Phone numbers stop working, the website disappears, or the company name changes.
- There is no authorisation. Financial services in Germany require a licence. Providers without one are operating unlawfully, whatever their website says.
- Contact came to you. A cold call, a social media message, an advertisement promising unusual returns.
If several of these apply, treat the matter as a fraud case rather than a customer service dispute, and act accordingly.
What should I do immediately?
The first days matter more than any later step, because money moves.
- Stop paying. Whatever the demand is called, do not meet it. Any request to pay money in order to receive your own money is the fraud continuing. Every payment made produces the next demand.
- Secure the evidence. Contracts and terms, complete chat and e-mail histories, payment receipts and bank statements, wallet addresses and transaction IDs, screenshots of the platform and of the balance shown. Export rather than screenshot where you can.
- Inform your bank or payment service provider. Especially where a transfer is recent or a card was used — some routes are time-limited.
- Do not delete anything. Not the account, not the app, not the chat history. Access credentials and message threads are evidence.
- Ignore recovery offers. People who approach you now, unsolicited, promising recovery for a fee are almost always running a second fraud. See our recovery scam warning.
What legal options do I have?
There are two tracks, and they work best together.
The criminal track
Investment fraud is a criminal offence: fraud under § 263 StGB, and — where false statements presenting the investment favourably are made to a larger group of investors in prospectuses or comparable documents — capital investment fraud under § 264a StGB.
A well-founded criminal complaint matters to victims for two practical reasons. First, public prosecutors can secure assets through confiscation and asset freezing (§§ 73 et seq. StGB, §§ 111b et seq. StPO) — which is often the only realistic route to a fund that can later compensate anyone. Second, once proceedings exist, a lawyer can apply for access to the investigation file under § 406e StPO. That file frequently contains what a private party could never obtain alone: the operators behind the platform, the receiving accounts, the payment flows.
What a criminal complaint is not is a mechanism for getting paid. It does not order repayment, and it does not run on your timetable.
The civil track
This is where compensation is actually pursued.
- § 823(2) BGB in conjunction with a protective statute — for example § 263 StGB, or the licensing requirement in § 32 KWG. An unlicensed provider has breached a rule that exists specifically to protect investors.
- § 826 BGB for intentional damage contrary to public policy, which can reach people who deliberately enabled the scheme without being its architects.
- §§ 280, 311 BGB where a contractual or pre-contractual relationship existed and advice or documents were misleading.
The payment route
How you paid shapes what is realistic:
| Payment method | Possible starting point | Caveat |
|---|---|---|
| Card payment | A chargeback can be prompted | The decision lies with your bank and the card scheme; time limits are often short |
| Bank transfer | Tracing the receiving account | Funds are typically moved on quickly; success depends on speed |
| Cryptocurrency | Following the chain to a KYC exchange | Transfers cannot be reversed; attribution needs information from third parties |
Who are the claims against?
Rarely just one person. Depending on the case: the individuals who ran the scheme, the company operating the platform, people behind it who directed matters, and in some cases parties who knowingly assisted — for instance by supplying accounts. Which of these are identifiable, and which hold assets worth pursuing, is precisely what the file access in the criminal proceedings is meant to establish.
What deadlines apply?
Civil claims are generally time-barred three years after the end of the year in which you learned of the damage and of the party responsible (§§ 195, 199 BGB). Different periods can apply in individual cases, and the point at which you are treated as having “learned” is not always obvious.
More important in practice is that the legal deadline is rarely the binding constraint. The binding constraint is how fast money moves.
What is realistic?
This is the part most sales pitches skip.
Whether money comes back depends on three things, none of which anyone can promise you at first contact: whether those responsible can be identified, whether assets can be secured before they disappear, and whether a foreign element makes enforcement impractical. Cases with a domestic company and a traceable account look very different from cases ending at an anonymous wallet.
That is why the first step here is an honest assessment: you should know which steps stand a chance in your case — and which would only cost money. Part of that is the sentence you will always hear from a reputable adviser: there is no guarantee of success.
How does a law firm focused on this area actually help?
By doing the parts that are hard to do alone: framing the complaint so that securing measures are actually considered, obtaining and reading the investigation file, identifying which of several possible defendants is worth pursuing, and assessing the payment route realistically rather than optimistically. The process page sets out each step, and the fees page explains what it costs before anything is instructed.
Next step
If you are affected, get clarity on your options first. Describe your case through our free initial assessment — confidential, without obligation, and with a clear answer about which steps have a prospect in your situation.