Stage 06 · It moves
Why it never stops at one payment, and the rule that ends it
Start here Refuse any payment asked for before money you are owed is released
Each new request is justified by the money already paid. The question is no longer whether this is real. It is whether the money is gone.
What the scammers are doing
Asking again, using what you already paid.
A fee, a tax owed first, a lawyer to pay, a conversion charge. Each one is small beside the amount it is supposed to free.
Why a scam works here
Stopping is the expensive option.
Carrying on costs a few thousand more. Stopping means accepting that everything already paid is gone, and saying so out loud.
What stops a scam here
Somebody outside the family argument.
New facts will not do it. Somebody outside the family can, because they do not need the person paying to have been wrong.
Why more money has to go in
In the cases we have read, the requests come in roughly this order, and a scam that runs for months uses most of them.
- A fee to release the funds. Administration, processing, an anti-money-laundering charge, a compliance review.
- Tax owed before the money can be sent. Withholding, capital gains, a foreign levy, a customs charge on a parcel.
- A lawyer, a notary, or an administrator who has to be engaged before anything can be signed off.
- A currency conversion, or a transfer charge at a bank you have never dealt with.
- An account to be opened, with a minimum balance or an opening deposit, so that the funds have somewhere to land.
- Insurance on the transfer, refundable once it clears.
- A fine or a penalty for the delay, for a missed deadline, or for having tried to stop.
- One more investor’s share, because the round has to close and yours is the last piece.
- Somebody new, from a different office, a senior person, who is going to sort all of this out, and needs one payment to begin.
Every request on this list asks you to send money the opposite way to the money you are owed. That one test is enough, and it does not ask you to know who anybody is.
By this point, many people have already doubted the payments.
We think the doubt often goes unsaid, because stopping means saying a number out loud to somebody who loves them.
Each new payment is measured against the wrong thing.
Two thousand looks like nothing next to the ninety thousand it is supposed to release. But the ninety thousand is not coming, so the real comparison is two thousand against nothing.
Accepting a loss is harder than changing your mind
At every earlier stage the person was deciding whether to believe something. At this stage the person is deciding whether to accept a loss. Evidence can change a belief. A loss can only be accepted, all at once, with an amount attached.
A family argument at this stage is about facts:
- The company
- The man they deal with
- The website
- The returns
The person is usually not disagreeing with any of those facts. The person is declining to be the one who says the money is gone. Winning the argument about the facts does not make that easier to say, and it makes whoever won into the person’s opponent.
Interrupting somebody at this stage sometimes works, and usually does not. In Singapore, police and banks texted customers they had identified as likely scam victims:
- March and April 2024: more than 12,500 people alerted, over 3,000 scams stopped. About 24 in every 100.
- January and February 2026: more than 2,100 people alerted, over 300 scams stopped. About 14 in every 100.
Singapore’s texts went to strangers, so using the figures as a guide for a family is our inference.
Our reading. Step in even though most interruptions fail, in the way that costs the person least, because you may get only one attempt.
Do not make somebody admit they were wrong in order to stop.
In our reading, the conversations that work at this stage leave the person’s version of events alone and ask only that the next payment wait.
What to do, in the order we would start
The first action is for the person paying. The next two are for whoever is watching and getting nowhere.
Start here
None of these three actions asks the person paying to admit anything about the past.
Refuse any payment asked for before money you are owed is released
What to do. Treat every fee, tax or charge the same way: as a no, without deciding whether the money you were promised is real. Money that is really yours arrives with fees and tax already taken out.
The rule. Nothing lawful requires you to pay first to unlock a larger payment to you. If the next step is money leaving you, say no. You do not have to explain why to anybody.
Why it works. The rule needs no facts and no judgement about a person. It also works later: some people who offer to return lost money ask for a fee first.
What it does not do. Mean that fees are never real. Real fees include:
- A lawyer’s bill
- Land transfer tax
- Duty on a parcel you actually ordered
What makes a real fee different. A real fee is charged to you as a customer and usually deducted. It never stands between you and money you have been promised.
Argue about the next payment, not the last one
What to do. Concede the past completely, and mean it. Then say: “You may well be right about all of it. I am only asking you not to send this one until Friday.”
What not to add. No verdict, no history, no I-told-you-so saved for later. Ask about one payment and one delay, and say nothing about the payments before it.
Why it works. At this point the person is not protecting the investment. The person is protecting a version of events in which none of this was foolish. A request that leaves that version alone is one they can say yes to.
What it does not do. Feel satisfying. You will be agreeing out loud with something you believe is false, and that is hard.
Bring in one person from outside the family
What to do. A bank manager, an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, a member of the clergy: somebody with no history in the argument and nothing to win. Ask them to look at the payments, not to give a verdict on the person.
Why it works. By this point every family member has taken a side. Somebody outside the family can say what the family has been saying without it also meaning you were foolish and I was right.
What it does not do. Work most of the time. Plan for a second try if the first one fails.
Worth doing
Neither action needs the person to agree that the requests are a scam.
Lower the limits instead of winning the argument
What it does. Reduces how much money can be reached, whether or not anybody is persuaded:
- Lower daily limits
- Savings moved somewhere that takes a day to reach
- A trusted contact person named on the investment account
What it does not do. Happen without the person knowing. A bank will not act for a family member without authorization. Trying anyway ends the conversation for good, and the payments carry on without you.
Write down every payment: date, amount, route, and to whom
What it does. Nothing to stop a payment today. “Route” means how it was sent: cash, wire, gift card. Your bank and the police will ask for this list later, and without it you spend the first week searching old statements.
What it does not do. Need to be complete or tidy. A date and an amount on a piece of paper is more use than no record at all.
Often suggested, does less than you would think
All three suggestions assume the person disagrees with you about the facts.
Telling the person it is a scam
Once you have told the person it is a scam, agreeing with you costs them the argument as well as the money.
Showing the person the evidence
A three-week-old website, a registry search, a news story about the same scheme. All true, and no use here, because the person is not defending a factual claim.
Taking over the accounts
Understandable, but taking over usually ends your access to what is happening. The payments continue and you stop hearing about them.
People outside the family who can help
None of these people can force anything. You have to go to them.
- The branch, in person, with the person paying. A bank manager can explain what a transfer will and will not do, place a hold, and ask a question a daughter cannot ask. Going in together is the part that matters.
- The firm holding the investment account. In some cases it may pause a transaction it believes is exploitation. It can call the trusted contact person named on the account. Neither step needs a power of attorney.
- The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. You can report a scam while it is still happening. A report does not need the money to be gone, or anybody to agree that it is a scam.
a hold the bank stops one payment while somebody asks a question
A bank or an investment firm can pause a single withdrawal, transfer or trade rather than let it go through. The institution places it, not you, and it is temporary. It does not close the account or touch the rest of the money.
power of attorney a document that lets somebody else act on your money or your property
You sign it in advance, while you can still make the decision, and you choose how wide it is. What it covers and what it is called differ from one province to the next. It does not hand over ownership.
the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre where scams get reported nationally, which is not the same as being investigated
It gathers reports from across the country so that patterns can be seen. Your own case belongs to the local police force, and the Centre does not work it. It cannot move money either.
a trusted contact person a name on an investment account that the firm is allowed to telephone
It hands over no power at all: a trusted contact cannot trade, cannot see balances and cannot move money. The firm decides whether to call, and it may only call if a name and a written consent are already on file. This is not a power of attorney.
Phone numbers, with French service, are on Who to call.