Question 1

What exactly does TraceNOW do?

Accepted Answer

We are an open-source intelligence firm specialising in tracing stolen funds. We reconstruct where money went after a fraud, identify the services and entities that touched it, and document the whole thing to a standard that banks, exchanges, regulators and courts will accept. We are not a recovery agency, a law firm or a debt collector, and we never handle client money.

Question 2

How is this different from a recovery service?

Accepted Answer

A recovery service promises an outcome, getting your money back, and usually charges a percentage of it. We sell investigative work: the evidence needed by the parties who actually have the power to freeze, return or prosecute. That distinction matters because outcome-based pricing creates pressure to overstate findings. Our fee is the same whether the news is good or bad.

Question 3

How do I know you are not another scam?

Accepted Answer

Check us the way we would tell you to check anyone: we are TraceNOW Intelligence Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 14872305, with an ICO data-protection registration and a public registered office. We never contact victims first, we never ask you to send funds to unlock funds, and our triage costs nothing so you can judge the quality of the work before paying. If any firm, including us, resists that kind of verification, walk away.

Question 4

Do you work internationally?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We operate from London, Berlin, Canberra and Ottawa and have worked cases involving more than forty jurisdictions. Blockchain analysis is jurisdiction-neutral; the escalation route is not, which is why the report is written for the specific regulator, bank or police force that will receive it. Case handling is available in English and German.

Question 5

Can you help if I am not the victim, for example, a family member?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with the affected person's written authorisation, or with proof of legal authority such as a power of attorney or an executor appointment. We ask for this because the case file will contain personal and financial data, and because acting on someone's behalf without their knowledge creates problems for them later, particularly if the matter reaches a court.

Question 6

How long does an investigation take?

Accepted Answer

Triage comes back within 24 hours. A single-chain crypto trace is typically 3–5 working days. Fake platform and broker cases usually run 7–12 working days, and multi-jurisdiction banking matters 10–20. If part of your case is time-critical, such as an open freeze window or a chargeback deadline, that element is escalated on day one and does not wait for the rest of the report.

Question 7

What information do I need to send?

Accepted Answer

Whatever exists. For crypto: transaction hashes or wallet addresses. For bank or card payments: statements, references and the merchant descriptor. Everything else is helpful context, chat exports, emails, the platform URL, the names used, phone numbers, screenshots. Do not filter it for relevance; details that look meaningless to you are frequently the ones that connect your case to another.

Question 8

I deleted the messages or lost access to the account. Is it hopeless?

Accepted Answer

No, though it narrows what we can do. Payment records sit with regulated institutions and survive whatever happens to your device. Websites are archived. Blockchain records are permanent. Missing chat logs mainly affect the attribution side of the work, not the fund-flow side. Tell us plainly what is gone and we will scope around it rather than charge you for work that cannot be done.

Question 9

What actually happens after I receive the report?

Accepted Answer

The report includes a recommended action sequence, which exchange, bank or regulator to notify, in what order, with drafted notices you can send as they are. If you instruct us, we send the compliance notice under our own case reference, which institutions generally engage with more readily than an individual complaint. We then monitor the identified infrastructure for 30 days and tell you if anything moves.

Question 10

Do you accept every case?

Accepted Answer

No. Roughly one in seven enquiries is declined. Usually because the available evidence cannot support a finding, sometimes because the loss is too small for a full report to make economic sense, and occasionally because the request itself falls outside our Acceptable Use Policy. In the first two situations we say so at triage, at no charge, and point you to whatever free route exists.

Question 11

What does an investigation cost?

Accepted Answer

Triage is free. A guided review is €149. A full forensic investigation starts at €890 and is quoted after triage based on complexity, the number of chains, institutions, jurisdictions and counterparties involved. An analyst consultation is €220 for 45 minutes. You always receive a fixed quote before any work starts; we do not bill open-ended hourly work.

Question 12

Do you take a percentage of anything recovered?

Accepted Answer

Never. Success fees are the single most common structure in this industry and the reason so many reports overstate what was found. Our fee is for the work, payable whether the conclusion is encouraging or not. If you are quoted a percentage by any firm, ask yourself what happens to their incentives when the honest answer is "the trail ends here".

Question 13

How do I pay, and what will you never accept?

Accepted Answer

We invoice from our registered company and accept bank transfer or card. We do not accept payment in cryptocurrency, gift cards, vouchers, cash by post or transfers to a private individual, and no member of our staff will ever request payment through a personal account or a messaging app. Any such request is not from us.

Question 14

What happens if you find nothing?

Accepted Answer

It happens, and we prefer to catch it at triage, which is why triage is free. If an investigation is scoped, begun and then yields substantially less than the agreed scope because the evidence does not support it, we say so in writing and refund the difference against the quoted scope rather than padding the report to justify the fee.

Question 15

How is my data protected?

Accepted Answer

Intake is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is limited to the analyst assigned to your case and is logged. We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office and process EU personal data under the GDPR, Canadian data under PIPEDA and Australian data under the Australian Privacy Principles. Full detail, including retention periods and your rights, is in our Privacy Policy.

Question 16

How long do you keep my case file?

Accepted Answer

Case material is retained while your case is active and for a defined period afterwards to meet legal and evidential obligations, typically six years where a matter may become the subject of proceedings, shorter where it will not. After that it is securely deleted. You can request earlier deletion at any time, and we will tell you which parts we are legally required to keep and why.

Question 17

Can the fraudsters find out I am investigating them?

Accepted Answer

Our analysis is passive: we read public records, licensed datasets and blockchain data without interacting with the operation. We do not contact the persona, do not visit their site in a way that identifies you, and do not signal that a case is open. The visible step is escalation, a notice to an exchange or the police, and that only happens with your instruction, at a point of your choosing.

Question 18

Can you get my money back?

Accepted Answer

No, and any firm that says otherwise should be treated with suspicion. Recovery happens through banks, exchange compliance teams, regulators, courts and law enforcement, all of which need evidence before they act, and none of which will act on a private firm's say-so. Our role is to produce that evidence and put it in front of the right desk quickly. That is often the difference between a case that moves and one that does not.

Question 19

Should I report to the police as well?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in almost every case, and preferably before or alongside our work. A police reference number gives institutions the standing to act and preserves your position if the matter goes further. Tell us the reference at intake. We format the deliverable to attach to your existing report rather than duplicating it.

Question 20

Will your report be accepted in court?

Accepted Answer

Our reports are prepared to evidentiary standards: sourced, timestamped, hashed and with a methodology section and confidence grading throughout. They are regularly used in civil proceedings and by law-enforcement referral. Admissibility is ultimately a matter for the court and the rules of the jurisdiction, and where a formal expert report or witness statement is required we will tell you what that involves and coordinate with your counsel.

Question 21

A firm contacted me offering to recover my money for a fee. Is that legitimate?

Accepted Answer

Assume not until it is verified. Unsolicited contact after a loss is the defining feature of the secondary fraud that targets people who have already been defrauded, and knowing the details of your case proves only that the information circulated. We will verify any firm that has approached you free of charge, usually within a few hours. Do not pay an advance fee before that check is complete.

Question 22

Do you work directly with lawyers?

Accepted Answer

Regularly, around a third of our cases come through law firms and insolvency practitioners. We can be instructed by your solicitor, deliver into a defined litigation timetable and prepare material for a specific application, such as a preservation or disclosure request. If you already have counsel, introducing us early usually saves duplicated work and cost.