How to Recover Money Lost to a Romance Scam in India

By Advocate Panchanand Shaw, Bar Council of West Bengal · Published 1 Nov 2026 · Online fraud

Money lost to a romance scam is recovered by reporting to 1930 and the bank before the funds are withdrawn, filing a cheating complaint under section 318(4) of the BNS, 2023 with section 66D of the IT Act, 2000, and using a civil suit only where the accused is identified and holds assets.

A romance scam takes money from someone who believes they are in a relationship. Recovery starts with a single phone call to 1930 and a written complaint to the bank, because the funds have to be frozen before they are withdrawn; the criminal complaint follows under section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 for cheating, with section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 added where the deception ran through a computer resource. There is no fund that compensates romance scam victims in India, so the only money that comes back is money that is stopped, seized or decreed.

The uncomfortable part is that the victim authorised every transfer. The bank's records show a customer who logged in, entered an OTP and confirmed a payment. Nothing in the bank's system was breached. That single fact shapes every route that follows: the RBI's protection for unauthorised electronic transactions does not apply on its own, the chargeback window is narrow, and the case has to be built as a fraud on the customer rather than a failure of the bank. Understanding this early prevents months of complaints addressed to the wrong institution.

What makes romance scam recovery different

In a card or net banking fraud the bank holds the evidence. In a romance scam the victim holds it. The inducement happened in a chat, on a call, in a video that was probably not the person in the photograph. The bank only sees the payment instruction. So the evidential burden sits with the complainant from the first day, and the quality of what is preserved in the first forty-eight hours determines whether the case can be investigated at all.

The second difference is the emotional structure. Romance scams run for weeks or months before the first request for money, and the requests escalate gradually: a small emergency, then a customs fee, then a medical bill, then an investment. By the time the victim suspects anything, the relationship has produced a long record of voluntary payments that a defence can characterise as gifts or loans. Rebutting that characterisation needs the messages that show what the money was actually promised for.

The third difference is geography. The person may claim to be abroad, and the money may be routed through several accounts before it leaves India. Each hop adds a request and a delay. Recovery therefore depends on how fast the first freeze is placed and how completely the beneficiary chain is documented in the first complaint.

The provisions that carry the case

Section 318(4) of the BNS, 2023 punishes cheating and dishonestly inducing the delivery of property, up to seven years with fine. That is the core charge where money was obtained by a false representation. Section 316 of the BNS covers criminal breach of trust, which fits where funds were entrusted for a stated purpose — a visa deposit, a flight ticket, a shared savings plan — and then misappropriated. Sections 336 and 340 of the BNS cover forgery and forged electronic records, which is what a fabricated medical report, a fake invoice or a doctored bank statement amounts to. Section 61 of the BNS covers conspiracy where a group runs several personas at once. Section 351 of the BNS covers criminal intimidation where the person threatens to publish private material after being challenged.

On the technology side, section 66D of the IT Act, 2000 covers cheating by personation using a computer resource, and section 66C covers identity theft where another person's photographs or documents were used. Where intimate images are involved and are used to demand money, section 67 of the IT Act covers publication of obscene material and section 67A covers sexually explicit material, while the BNS provisions on criminal intimidation and extortion apply to the demand itself. If the person is a minor, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 applies and the complaint must be routed accordingly — the penalties and the procedure are materially different and the case should not be filed as an ordinary cheating complaint.

Procedurally, the complaint is registered under section 173 of the BNSS, 2023; refusal to register is met with an application under section 175(3) of the BNSS; and electronic records need the certificate under section 63 of the BSA, 2023. Where the accused is not arrested and the investigation is likely to take time, the complainant should also be ready for the question of custody of the seized devices and the preservation of the account records.

What to do in the first seventy-two hours

Call 1930. Give the transaction references, the beneficiary account numbers and UPI IDs, the amounts and the dates. Ask for the report number. This is the step that can freeze funds and it should be taken before anything else, including before writing to the platform.
Tell the bank in writing. Email the fraud desk and the nodal officer on the same day. Ask for the transactions to be marked as disputed for fraudulent inducement, for the beneficiary details to be preserved, and for a written acknowledgement. Keep the email headers.
Preserve the conversation, do not edit it. Export the chat from the app rather than screenshotting page by page. Note the platform, the username, the profile URL and the dates. Do not delete the account, block the person, or "clean up" the thread.
Capture the payment trail. Download statements for every account used. For each payment, note what the person said the money was for. That sentence, in the chat, is the difference between a gift and a cheat.
File on cybercrime.gov.in. Use the same facts as the helpline report so the two references match. Upload the chat export and the statements.
File a written police complaint. Address it to the officer in charge of the station with jurisdiction, list the documents, and take a stamped receipt. The FIR follows under section 173 of the BNSS.
Notify the platform's grievance officer. Ask for preservation of the account records and the registration data. The platform cannot refund, but its logs identify the device and the IP.
Start a written diary. Every call, every reference number, every visit, every date. In a case that will be decided on documents, the diary is itself a document.

Routes to the money, and what each can do

Route	What it recovers	Speed	What it needs from you
1930 freeze request	Balance held in the beneficiary account	Same day to a few days	Transaction references and beneficiary details
Bank dispute and chargeback	Reversal of a card or gateway payment	Weeks	Proof of false representation and the dispute window
Police investigation	Identification and seizure	Weeks to months	A documented complaint and preserved evidence
Restoration application in the criminal court	Return of money already seized	Depends on the stage	An identified fund and an application
Civil suit for recovery	A decree against the defendant's assets	Months to years	A named defendant and traceable assets

Where the receiving account still holds money, the freeze plus a restoration application is the strongest combination. Where the money was withdrawn, the criminal case may end in conviction and a compensation order, but compensation depends on what the accused can pay. Where the accused is outside India, enforcement becomes the central problem and a civil decree may have little practical value without assets in India. It is better to know which of these situations you are in before spending money on litigation.

What decides the outcome

Documented inducement. Messages that state why the money was needed and what would happen next are decisive. A payment accompanied by "this is for your visa deposit, I will repay when I land" is evidence of a false promise. A payment with no message is easy to describe as a gift.

Speed of reporting. Every hour between the transfer and the 1930 call reduces the chance that the money is still there. Banks act on the request they receive, not on the loss the customer suffered.

Traceability of the beneficiary. A single named account with KYC records is workable. A chain of mule accounts opened in other people's names is not, unless the investigation moves quickly enough to catch the chain before it disperses.

Consistency of the account. A complainant whose version matches the bank statements and the chat records is believed. A complainant who overstates the amount or misdescribes a payment loses credibility on everything else.

Whether the relationship was real. Courts look at whether the other person existed, whether meetings ever happened, whether the identity documents were genuine. A person who was genuinely who they claimed to be and then borrowed money is a different case from a persona built on stolen photographs.

What not to do

Do not pay the "release fee". The second demand is the proof that the first was a fraud. Paying it doubles the loss and signals that the victim will keep paying.
Do not threaten the person publicly. Posting their photograph or details online can expose you to a defamation or privacy complaint and can compromise the investigation.
Do not close the account or the wallet. Closing it destroys the transaction history the police need.
Do not accept a "refund" through a new link. Recovery scams target romance scam victims specifically. No agency asks for a fee to release frozen money.
Do not wait for the relationship to be resolved. The person who asks for money and then disappears does not come back to repay; they come back to ask again.
Do not assume the bank will reverse it because you were deceived. The bank's obligation is defined by the RBI's directions and the payment network's rules, not by sympathy.

The recoverable part of a romance scam is almost always decided in the first two days. Everything after that is investigation and litigation, which are worth pursuing but recover far less.

When to involve a lawyer

The emergency steps — 1930, the bank, the portal, the police station — do not need a lawyer and should not wait for one. A lawyer helps when the police decline to register the case and an application under section 175(3) of the BNSS has to be made; when the amount is large enough to justify a civil suit and the pleadings must separate a loan from a gift from an induced payment; and when intimate images have been threatened, because the framing under section 67 of the IT Act and the BNS intimidation provisions changes both the urgency and the court's approach.

If the accused has been traced and arrested, the bail hearing matters to victims as well as to the accused: the conditions imposed can include a direction not to contact the complainant and to deposit the disputed amount. That is worth being represented at. Readers in West Bengal can find the general framework on the West Bengal cyber crime page, and if you need to discuss what your records support, the contact page is the place to start. Where a recovery suit is being weighed alongside the criminal complaint, the note on civil litigation sets out how the two proceedings interact.

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Frequently asked questions

How do I recover money from a romance scam?

Report to 1930 and to your bank the same day so the beneficiary account can be frozen, then file a cheating complaint under section 318(4) of the BNS, 2023, and file a civil recovery suit if the accused is identified and holds assets inside India.

Why won't my bank refund a romance scam payment?

Because you authorised the transfer yourself. The RBI's July 2017 direction protects customers against unauthorised electronic transactions, and a payment confirmed with your own credentials is treated as authorised, however badly you were deceived about who was actually receiving the money.

What evidence do I need in a romance scam complaint?

The chat export with timestamps, the profile URL, the payment references, bank statements and a written chronology. The messages must show what the money was promised for, because without that sentence the payment is easily described as a gift or a personal loan.

Can I get a chargeback for a romance scam payment?

Only in limited cases, such as a card or payment gateway transaction made on a false representation within the dispute window. A direct bank transfer or UPI payment usually falls outside chargeback rules, so the criminal complaint and a civil suit become the real routes.

How much money do romance scam victims actually recover?

There is no reliable figure and no compensation fund in India. Recovery depends on whether funds were frozen early and whether the accused holds assets. Where money was withdrawn and routed through mule accounts, most victims recover very little of what they lost.

What if the romance scammer is in another country?

The freeze still works on funds sitting in Indian accounts. Beyond that, investigators need platform records, IP logs and mutual legal assistance, which is slow. A civil decree against a person with no assets in India is rarely worth the cost of pursuing it.

Information for general guidance only and not legal advice. Provisions cited follow the Information Technology Act 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023.

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