Victim advisory
Scammers prey on hack victims.
Read this before you pay anyone.
Being robbed makes you a target a second time. The moment a theft becomes public — a forum post, a social thread, a flagged wallet — "recovery" operations appear, promising to get your funds back. Some are outright criminals. Others are real companies selling expertise they don't have.
We saw it firsthand
While working our own family's case — the $400,000 hack that led to this tool — we engaged with a recovery firm. Not a fly-by-night operation: a large, established company. It quickly became clear they were misrepresenting their technical capabilities to appear more sophisticated than they were. They didn't know they were talking to engineers who had already traced the funds themselves — and their claims didn't survive contact with someone who could check them.
They wanted a significant amount of money — up front. The misrepresentations were the red flag, and we did not proceed. A victim without a technical background would have had no way to know. That's exactly who these pitches are designed for, and exactly why this page exists.
Red flags
If you see these, slow down
Significant payment demanded up front
Legitimate professionals bill for defined work. A firm that wants thousands before demonstrating anything is asking you to gamble twice on the same theft.
Guaranteed or near-guaranteed recovery
Nobody can guarantee recovery. Funds move at the will of the thief, exchanges, and courts. Certainty is a sales tactic, not a technical claim.
Vague 'proprietary technology' claims
Ask exactly how they trace. On-chain analysis is reproducible from public data — if they can't explain their method in verifiable terms, they may not have one.
Pressure and artificial urgency
"The window is closing, sign today." Urgency short-circuits the diligence that would expose them. Real evidence doesn't expire overnight.
They contacted you first
Scammers monitor forums, social posts, and victim communities. Unsolicited offers of recovery help — especially in DMs — are overwhelmingly scams.
Any request for keys, seed phrases, or 'recovery deposits'
No legitimate party ever needs your private keys or seed phrase, and nobody recovers crypto by asking you to send more crypto. Walk away immediately.
Where vout.io stands
vout.io has no plans to ever advocate for a particular recovery firm. This is a zero-trust wild west, and attaching our name to any operator would put victims at risk on our word. That said, we aim to do right: there may well be honest professionals out there offering real help. The point is not "trust no one forever" — it's verify before you pay, and never pay blind.
This is also why tracing here is free for victims: run the trace yourself, see where your funds actually sit, and measure anyone's claims against evidence you can reproduce. If a firm's story about your own funds doesn't match your own trace, you have your answer.
Real recovery runs through official channels: a police report, your national cybercrime portal, exchange compliance teams (armed with the deposit evidence a trace provides), and ultimately court orders. Slower than a sales pitch — but real.
vout.io provides analysis and evidence, not legal advice. Nothing on this page is a substitute for advice from law enforcement or a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.