In a real arrangement, money moves one way: from him to you. Every scam that wears a sugar daddy costume flips that at the last second. He “sends” an allowance, then asks you to send part of it back. He mails a check for more than agreed and wants the difference forwarded. A “verification fee” or “clearance fee” has to be paid before the transfer clears. Gift cards will “unlock” the payment that’s stuck. Whatever the story, the ending is the same: the person who was supposed to receive money has just sent some, and the money he “sent” was never real.
If that’s where you are right now, stop talking to him. Don’t send “one more” fee, don’t argue, don’t wait for an explanation. Whatever he says next, threats of the FBI, a lawyer, or “he’ll be devastated,” is part of the script.
What you do next depends on what you sent. Some of this is recoverable if you move fast. Most isn’t, and knowing which is which keeps you from making it worse.
If you sent money through Cash App, Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal
A payment you authorized yourself, even to a scammer, counts as authorized under Regulation E. The apps generally will not reverse it, and Zelle has only refunded certain imposter scams (bank, government, utility) since June 2023, not romance transfers.
Call your bank first, not the app. Say: “I sent money to someone I now believe is a scammer; flag this as suspected fraud, and tell me if anything can still be stopped.” If the transfer is pending, ask them to cancel it. Then report the transaction inside the app itself. Don’t expect the money back. Do expect extra scrutiny, and possibly closure, once a bank sees an unexplained transfer to a stranger.
If you bought gift cards
The code is the money. Once you read a gift card code to someone, it’s spent in minutes. Still call the retailer or issuer (Apple, Google, Amazon, Target) with the card number and receipt; some will refund an unused balance if you catch it fast. Gift cards are the most commonly reported romance-scam payment method, per FTC data, precisely because they move this fast.
If you sent a wire
Call your bank’s fraud line the same day and ask them to request a wire recall from the receiving bank. That sometimes works if the funds haven’t been withdrawn yet, and rarely works once the wire went overseas or the account has already been emptied, which is the usual case. Put the fraud report in writing; wires carry none of a credit card’s reversal protections.
If you sent crypto
Assume it’s gone. The FBI calls crypto transfers “irreversible” and “very hard to trace it and to recover it back.” Report the wallet address to the exchange you bought the crypto through, and file with IC3.gov, which tracks scam wallets across cases. Crypto was 34% of romance-scam losses in 2025, up from 18% in 2021.
If you deposited a check
Do not spend a dollar of it, even if it shows as “available.” Banks must make part of a deposit available within a day or two, long before they’ve verified the check is real. Fake checks are usually caught one to two weeks later, and when the bank reverses the deposit, you owe the full amount back, plus whatever you already spent or forwarded. Call your bank today, say “I believe this check I deposited is fraudulent,” and ask them to flag and hold it. If you already forwarded part of it (a common version: “keep some, send the rest back”), stop immediately and tell the bank that too; forwarding stolen-check proceeds is the entry point to money-mule charges, even without knowing the check was fake.
If you shared your ID or Social Security number
Freeze your credit at all three bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion). It’s free and stays in place until you lift it. Add a fraud alert on top of the freeze. If you’re a U.S. taxpayer, get an IRS Identity Protection PIN through your IRS online account so a fraudulent return can’t be filed under your SSN, then watch your accounts for new credit lines you didn’t open.
If you shared intimate images
Don’t pay, and don’t reply to the threat. The FBI is direct about this: offenders release material regardless of whether the victim pays. Before you block him, save everything: his profile, every message with timestamps, the images themselves, screenshotted with URL and time visible. Then report on-platform (Instagram, Snapchat, and Seeking all have a flow for this) and hash the images at StopNCII.org, which works with Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and X to block re-uploads without anyone but you seeing the images. If you were under 18 when the image was taken, use NCMEC’s Take It Down instead. Under the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, platforms must remove flagged nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a valid request; if one doesn’t, report that failure at TakeItDown.ftc.gov. File with IC3 too. The threat to expose you is itself a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 875(d), worth remembering when he tells you that you’re the one who did something wrong.
Report it, in this order
File at reportfraud.ftc.gov and ic3.gov; both take minutes and build the record law enforcement uses to connect cases. Report the profile to whatever platform you met on. If anything was mailed to you, add the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
The “recovery service” is the second scam
Once you’ve reported a loss anywhere, expect a follow-up offering to get your money back for an upfront fee, sometimes claiming to be a lawyer, a “blockchain recovery specialist,” or even the FBI. IC3 recorded $540 million in recovery-scam losses in 2025 alone, concentrated among people over 60. No legitimate recovery process charges an upfront fee, and the FBI doesn’t contact victims by text or social media asking for one. Anyone asking you to pay to get your money back is running the same scam in a different hat.
The part no one talks about
Researchers who study romance-scam victims describe a “double hit”: the money is gone, and so is the relationship you thought you had, and most people rate the second loss as worse. That’s part of why so few report. One survey of scam victims found 40% told no one at all, and separate research on sextortion specifically found only 8% reported it anywhere. People stay quiet because the reaction they expect, and often get, is being called gullible, not because what happened was unusual. It wasn’t. It was a script run on thousands of people, and the version aimed at you was tested on someone else first.
The free download on this page is a printable checklist for screening a real arrangement before money ever changes hands, worth keeping even now.
Sources: FTC data on romance scam payment methods (2025); FBI IC3 2025 Internet Crime Report; FBI sextortion guidance; StopNCII.org and NCMEC Take It Down program pages; FTC guidance on the TAKE IT DOWN Act (2026); 18 U.S.C. § 875(d); Cybernews sextortion victim survey; Malwarebytes romance scam survey (2024). General education, not legal advice.