What to do if you've been scammed

Unfortunately, sometimes you or someone you know might fall victim to a scam.

A great first stop for what to do next is to visit https://scamwatch.gov.au/. This is an Australian government website that provides information on how to spot, avoid and deal with scams. You can also report scams on that site to direct the government to act against them.

Some general steps you can follow if you've been scammed are:

1. Have a think about if you shared any personal account login details (email/password) with the scammers. If you did, immediately change the passwords for those accounts. Examples of this would be your bank account login credentials, your email account login, or your Hardblock account.
   1. Consider whether you may have shared private keys or seed phrases for your bitcoin wallet. If you have, do not use that wallet anymore - create a new one instead. If someone set up a wallet for you, do not use that wallet.
2. Try to divest and pull your funds out of the scammer platform. If you can't do this automatically, you can try contacting them: give them a reason, such as an emergency to fund a medical procedure or some other important reason to need you to get the funds out. Consider saying that you need the funds now, but you can reinvest with them again in the future. Don't intentionally let them know you think they are a scammer operation or antagonise them as it may make things worse for you.
3. You can contact your bank's scam support line and discuss the situation with them. They may be able to recall any bank transfers sent to the scammer operation. Note that they can only issue a recall of funds through the banking system. If you have sent funds to an exchange account, converted it to bitcoin, and then sent the bitcoin to a scammer address, it will almost certainly be not possible to get those funds back. So, you should only send bitcoin to an address where you control the private keys alone.

The best way to deal with scammers is to never engage with them in the first place. Only use reputable services and sources of information, and stick to local Australian businesses, as more often than not, scammers are always foreign-based.