Recovery routes

Can you actually get the money back?

Sometimes, partly, and it depends almost entirely on how the money left and how fast you moved. Here is an honest assessment of each route rather than false comfort.

The one rule that protects you now

Never pay anything before recovered money has reached you. Not a retainer in crypto, not a "release fee", not a "tax" on frozen funds, not a "bond" to a court you have never heard of. Every one of those is a recovery-room scam, and the timing is what gives it away.

Fees charged after a successful recovery are a different thing entirely — contingency arrangements are how most civil recovery work is funded, and a lawyer taking a share of what you actually received is normal. The rule is about sequence, not about whether a fee exists at all.

Legitimate Canadian lawyers are licensed by a provincial law society whose directory you can check yourself, bill from a verifiable firm, and will tell you plainly when a case is not worth pursuing. Regulators and police never charge.

Route by route

What each avenue is worth

Payment method is the single biggest predictor of recovery. Credit cards carry real dispute rights; e-Transfers and crypto carry almost none once settled.

Credit card chargeback

Often viable

The strongest consumer position. Card networks provide dispute rights for goods or services not received or not as described. Raise it with your issuer at once and put the dispute in writing.

Window: Report immediately; card network rules impose strict deadlines

Debit / Interac e-Transfer recall

Difficult

Once an e-Transfer is auto-deposited or claimed, it is effectively irreversible. A recall request can still work if made before the recipient collects, so call within minutes, not days.

Window: Hours — before the recipient deposits the funds

Wire recall

Occasionally viable

Domestic and international wires can sometimes be recalled if the receiving bank has not released the funds and freezes the account. Speed is the entire variable.

Window: Same day, ideally within hours

Bank reimbursement claim

Depends on facts

Unauthorized transactions — where you did not authorise the payment at all — are treated very differently from authorised push payments you were deceived into making. Argue the former where it fits.

Window: Follow the bank's internal process, then escalate

OBSI complaint

Worth doing

Free and independent, the single external complaints body for all federally regulated banks since November 2024. It can recommend compensation up to $350,000. Recommendations are not legally binding, but they are published and near-universally followed.

Window: After a final decision, or 56 days with no answer

Civil litigation

Strong where assets exist

The route that genuinely moves money — if there is an identifiable defendant with traceable assets. Norwich and Mareva orders are the opening moves. Costly, so counsel will assess recoverability first.

Window: Two years in most provinces, three in Quebec

Criminal restitution

Slow, partial

Requires the offender to be identified, charged, convicted and solvent. Real, but it is a long tail rather than a plan. File a victim impact statement and ask the Crown about restitution early.

Window: At sentencing, if there is a conviction

Crypto tracing

Case-dependent

Blockchain transactions are public and traceable. Recovery depends on funds reaching a regulated exchange that can be compelled by court order to freeze and identify. Off-ramps to non-compliant platforms usually end the trail.

Window: Immediately — funds move within hours

Bank claims

Authorized versus unauthorized — the distinction that decides your claim

This single line determines most bank outcomes in Canada, and it is worth understanding before you make your case.

Unauthorized transactions

Someone took over your account or used your card without your involvement. Cardholder agreements and network rules generally provide strong protection where you did not contribute to the loss and reported promptly.

Sharing a one-time passcode, even under pressure from someone posing as your bank, is where banks push back hardest. It remains arguable — the deception was the point — but expect resistance and prepare the timeline carefully.

Authorized push payments

You made the transfer yourself, because you were deceived. Canada has no general statutory reimbursement scheme for these, unlike the mandatory regime the UK introduced in 2024.

Claims here turn on whether the bank met its own obligations: did it ignore obvious red flags, fail to intervene on an out-of-pattern transfer, or mishandle your complaint? That is the argument to build, and OBSI is where it gets tested.

Building the bank complaint

1Put everything in writing, even after phone calls — email a summary and keep the thread.
2Ask explicitly for the bank's final decision letter; OBSI generally needs it to proceed.
3Request the transaction records and any fraud-monitoring notes on your account.
4Set out what the bank could have done: pattern deviation, new payee, unusual amount, branch interaction.
5Escalate internally to the bank's own ombudsman before going external.
6Then file with OBSI — free, independent, and no lawyer required.

Expectations

An honest word about outcomes

Most fraud losses in Canada are not fully recovered. Funds are moved through mule accounts and offshore platforms within hours, and many operators sit outside any jurisdiction Canadian courts can reach. Anyone who tells you otherwise before reviewing your file is selling something.

What does change outcomes: reporting within hours rather than days, keeping complete records, pursuing the bank complaint through to OBSI rather than stopping at the first refusal, and getting legal advice early enough that a freezing order is still meaningful.

Partial recovery is a real outcome and worth pursuing. So is the part that is not about money — a filed report contributes to a national intelligence picture that has repeatedly led to takedowns, and it protects the next person in a way nothing else does.

Reporting walkthrough Protect yourself from here

Impostor law firms

Cloned websites carrying real firms' names and real lawyers' details are a standard component of recovery-room fraud. The cloned site is often a better-looking copy of the genuine one.

So before you transfer anything to anyone, confirm you are dealing with who you think you are: look the firm up independently, and call the number you found yourself rather than one you were sent. That applies to us as much as to anybody else — our number is on the contact page.