Business email compromise: recovering a payment

Can a diverted payment be recovered

Recovery depends almost entirely on speed once business email compromise leads to a wire transfer. If you catch it within hours, your bank may still be able to recall the transfer or place a hold on the receiving account.

Once a day or more has passed, funds are usually moved on quickly, which makes tracing harder. No outcome can be promised in advance, but acting immediately gives your business the best position.

What matters most now is speed, not certainty about every detail of how it happened.

The immediate bank recall attempt

Contact your bank the moment fraud is suspected, and ask them to attempt a recall while your team gathers details in parallel. Give them the transfer time, amount, and receiving account if you have it.

Do this before finishing any internal discussion about how the email got through. The bank’s ability to act shrinks with every hour that passes.

Ask the bank directly what information they need to move fastest on your case.

Reporting to the police and preserving the trail

Report the matter to the police, including the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID), so the receiving account can be investigated. Do this even if the recall attempt already failed.

Preserve the original email with its full headers, the invoice or instruction it referenced, and any chat messages about the change. This is the evidence an investigator or a lawyer will ask for first.

Call the National Scam Response Centre on 997 if the transfer was very recent.

Internal review before the next payment goes out

Once the immediate steps are underway, review how the fraudulent request was believed, whether a call-back check was skipped, or a lookalike domain was missed. This is separate from, and comes after, the reporting itself.

Tightening how bank account changes are verified going forward reduces the chance of a repeat, though that work can wait until the urgent steps are done.

Civil claim options and what to do next

Once the receiving account is known, a civil claim against a scammer may be worth exploring, particularly for a meaningful amount. Weighing whether legal action is worth pursuing compares the likely cost against what was lost.

Legal help after a scam explains what a lawyer can add once your bank and police reports are already filed. A first assessment does not require every document to be ready first.

Recall your bank, report to the police, then preserve everything. The order matters more than having a complete picture on day one.