If you've just been scammed in the U.S., the first 72 hours decide almost everything. This is the exact filing order, agency by agency, with what each one can and cannot actually do.
Hour 1: stop the bleeding
Stop sending money. Do not pay the "tax", "audit fee", or "withdrawal verification" — that is the second slaughter. Screenshot every chat, dashboard, wallet address, name, and phone number *before* you block anyone, because the scammer will delete the account the moment they realize you've figured it out.
Hour 1–24: the four filings that matter most
### 1. Your bank or card issuer (call the fraud line, not customer support)
If a wire, ACH, Zelle, or card payment was involved, call the fraud line printed on the back of your card or on your bank's website. Request a wire recall. The window is 24–72 hours for international wires; SWIFT recalls succeed in roughly 8% of fraud cases when filed inside that window, almost never outside it. Get a case number in writing.
### 2. IC3 (FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center) — ic3.gov
This is the single most important filing for any internet-enabled fraud in the U.S. IC3 is how the FBI builds cases, how multi-victim consolidations happen, and how the Recovery Asset Team (RAT) gets activated. RAT has frozen over $500M in scam funds since 2018 — but only when the victim files within 72 hours and the funds are still at a U.S. financial institution. File even if the dollar amount is small. The aggregate matters.
### 3. The receiving exchange's compliance team
Find the wallet address your funds went to (your transaction history shows it). Use a block explorer to identify which exchange the address belongs to (Coinbase, Binance.US, Kraken, etc.) — most have on-chain labels visible on Etherscan/Tronscan. Email the exchange's compliance / law-enforcement contact directly: legal@, compliance@, law.enforcement@. Include your IC3 reference number. Compliance teams can freeze in-flight deposits in roughly 11% of cases when contacted within 24 hours.
### 4. FTC ReportFraud.ftc.gov
The FTC builds aggregate consumer-protection cases and shares data with state AGs. They don't recover funds, but their data drives enforcement against the platforms and ad networks the scammers used to reach you.
Day 2–7: the supporting filings
- Your state Attorney General's consumer protection division. Useful for state-level civil action, especially if the scammer reached you through a U.S.-based platform.
- CFPB (consumerfinance.gov/complaint) — for any complaint involving your bank's handling of the fraud or refusal to recall.
- SEC tips.sec.gov — if the scam involved a fake "security" or "investment" (almost all pig butchering does).
- CFTC whistleblower portal — if commodities, forex, or leveraged crypto products were involved.
- The platform where the scammer reached you — Instagram, Tinder, Telegram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn. Each has a fraud reporting form. This is how the account gets banned before they hit the next victim.
- GACS — gacs.app/report. The platform name, the wallet addresses, the phone numbers go into the public blacklist. This is the single highest-leverage filing for protecting the *next* victim — and the one that most directly converts victim into protector, which the clinical recovery literature shows is the strongest predictor of psychological recovery.
The tax write-off most victims don't know about
U.S. victims of an investment scam (including pig butchering) can claim the loss as a theft loss under IRC §165(c)(2) on Form 4684 in the year they discover the loss is unrecoverable. This is *not* the more restrictive "personal casualty loss" rule that was limited by TCJA — investment-theft losses remain fully deductible against ordinary income, with no $100 floor and no 10%-of-AGI threshold. For most filers this recovers 24–37% of the loss at marginal tax rates.
Talk to a CPA with experience in §165 theft loss filings. The required documentation is exactly what you already have from the steps above: the IC3 number, the exchange responses, the transaction history, the chat logs proving fraudulent intent. Do not skip this step. The IRS allows the deduction precisely because the alternative is rewarding the scammer with your tax dollars.
What does *not* work
- "Recovery agents" who cold-contact you on social media, email, or by phone. 100% of these are the second scam, often run by the same network. Real lawyers and real law enforcement do not cold-contact fraud victims.
- Filing only with local police. Local police almost never have jurisdiction over internet-enabled fraud. File with them for the report number (insurance may need it), but the real work happens at IC3 and the receiving institution.
- Public Twitter / Reddit posts of the scammer's wallet address. Exchanges do not monitor social media for fraud reports. They act on direct compliance channel contact.
The single most important sentence in this article
Speed beats sophistication. A simple, accurate IC3 filing within 24 hours has a higher recovery rate than a perfectly-worded legal demand letter filed at day 30. File now. Polish later.