"CAN I GET MY MONEY BACK?"

The sad answer is no. Once you send money to a scammer, then there's no way to retrieve it. At this point it's worth pointing out another scam that a scammer may approach you with an offer to get your money back for you. This is called a recovery scam, and here's how it works. The scammer realises that you're no longer going to send money to the character he used to scam you in the first place. It's time to bring another character into play. This one will write to you and claim to be able to get your money back. Who wouldn't want that, right? After all, it was your money in the first place before it was stolen.

They may claim to be from the police, the EFCC, the Nigerian government or even the FBI. They may even make their emails appear to be from these organisations. In this digital age it's easy to fake anything. So they write to you and offer to get your money back, but explain that you will need to pay some small fees. Procedures need to be followed, bribes need to be paid and all this costs money.

Of course there are no bribes to pay, nor are there any procedures to be followed in order to get your money back because the scammer has no intentions of giving your money back and has likely already spent it. All you're doing is giving the scammer more money and throwing good money after bad. Don't be fooled by anyone claiming to be able to get your money back, especially if they ask you for more money to be able to do