How quickly it was reported
Recall and freeze requests work on hours and days. A case reported the same week has options that a case reported six months later does not.
How a case runs
Five stages. You approve each one before it starts, you know what it costs before it starts, and you can stop at any point.
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Assessment
You send us the timeline and the documents you still have. We look at how the money left, where it went, how long ago, and whether any regulated party sits in the chain. At the end of this stage you get a written answer to one question: is there a realistic route worth pursuing?
If the answer is no, this is where it stops. We will tell you what the remaining free options are and we will not sell you an investigation that cannot go anywhere.
Typical duration: 3 working days · Cost: $350 fixed, credited against further work
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Engagement
If there is a route, we set out the scope, the stages, the fee for each and what each one is expected to produce. Nothing proceeds until you have that in writing and have agreed to it. There is no open-ended hourly arrangement.
Typical duration: 2 working days
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Tracing
The investigative work. Depending on the case that means reconstructing the account chain from bank records, following transactions across public blockchains to a service that holds identity records, or tracing a platform back through its payment processors, corporate filings and domain history.
You get progress updates at agreed points, including when the news is that a line of enquiry has closed.
Typical duration: 3–6 weeks
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Evidence package
A written report: the timeline, the payment chain, the attribution of each counterparty, the supporting exhibits with an index, and the methodology used to reach each conclusion. It is written to be handed straight to a bank fraud team, a regulator, a police unit or your solicitor without needing to be reworked.
The report says what is established and what is inferred. Those are not the same thing and we do not blur them.
Typical duration: 1–2 weeks
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Escalation
Getting the package in front of whoever can act: a recall or freeze request to the receiving institution, a complaint to the regulator or ombudsman, a submission to the relevant law enforcement agency, or disclosure material for your solicitor to use in a civil claim or freezing application.
Decisions at this stage belong to those bodies, not to us. What we control is that they receive a case that is complete and properly evidenced.
Duration: depends entirely on the institutions involved
Honest limits
What determines whether anything comes back
Mostly things that were decided in the first few days, before anyone was hired.
Where the money landed
A regulated bank or exchange can be compelled or persuaded. An unregulated platform in a non-cooperating jurisdiction usually cannot.
How many hops it took
Each transfer through another account, wallet or bridge adds cost and reduces the chance of a recoverable endpoint. Some trails simply end.
Whether records survived
Deleted messaging threads, closed accounts and expired platform logs remove evidence permanently. This is why preserving everything matters so much.
A note on expectations
In a meaningful proportion of cases the honest outcome is a documented explanation of what happened and a report you can use for a police file, an insurance claim or a tax loss — not returned money. We would rather you know that before you engage us than after.
Stage one is a question, not a commitment
Tell us what happened and we will tell you whether there is anything worth doing.