Frequently Asked Questions

Short, plain answers. If we missed one, email hi@phended.com.

Watch Out for the Second Scam

Once you've been scammed once, you become a target for what comes next. The same group, or a new one that bought your information, will reach out claiming they can recover your money if you pay them an upfront fee, a tax, a deposit, or a “processing charge”. They might say they're a law firm, a blockchain investigator, a government recovery agent, or a hacker who can “reverse” the transaction.

All of those are scams. Every single one.

Legitimate recovery only happens through law enforcement and the exchange's compliance team. It doesn't cost you money.
Crypto transactions cannot be “reversed”. Anyone promising that is lying.
Don't pay anyone, send any more crypto, share your screen, install any software, or hand over any ID to a stranger who contacted you about your loss.

If someone contacts you offering recovery, report them too. In Canada, Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. In the US, IC3.

The Basics

What does this tool actually do?

You paste a wallet address the scammer told you to send money to. We look at the public record of every Bitcoin or Ethereum transaction from that address and follow the money one wallet to the next, until the trail goes cold or the money lands at a known exchange.

Is this free?

Yes. There is nothing to buy, sign up for, or download.

Will you ask for my wallet password or seed phrase?

Never. Anyone who asks for your seed phrase or password is a scammer. We only read public blockchain data. We cannot move money and we do not want to.

Someone messaged me saying they can recover my crypto. Should I pay them?

No. That is the next scam.The moment you become a known victim, you go on a list that gets sold around. The same group (or a new one) will reach out claiming they're a law firm, a blockchain investigator, a recovery agent, or a hacker who can “reverse” the transaction. They will ask for an upfront fee, a tax, a deposit, or a processing charge. Every single one of these is a scam. Crypto transactions cannot be reversed. Real recovery only happens through police and exchange compliance, and it doesn't cost you anything.

Can you get my money back?

No. Nobody legitimate can promise that. What we can do is point at the place the scammer cashed out so the police or the exchange has something concrete to work with. Most recovery happens through law enforcement and exchange compliance teams, not through tools.

Reading the Graph

What is a hop?

A hop is one stop along the path the money took. Scammers move stolen crypto through several wallets before cashing out. Each one of those wallets is a hop.

What is the red "Scam Wallet"?

The wallet address you typed in. The trace starts here.

What is a blue "Exchange" node?

A wallet owned by a regulated exchange like Binance, Coinbase, or Kraken. When stolen money lands here, the exchange knows who picked it up. Police can subpoena the exchange to find out who. This is the goal of the trace.

What is a "Mixer"?

A service designed to hide where money is going by blending it with other people's funds. If the trail lands at a mixer it usually goes cold there. Tornado Cash is the most common one. Mixed funds are very hard to recover.

What does "Cash-Out" mean?

The point where the scammer turned crypto into regular money (or into another currency the exchange can track). That is the moment they had to identify themselves to someone.

Why does the trail just stop sometimes?

A few reasons. The money may still be sitting in a wallet. It may have moved through a mixer. It may have gone deeper than our current trace scope. Try running the trace again with a wider scope.

Using the Report

What do I do with the result?

Save the PDF. Attach it to your fraud report. In Canada, file with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. In the US, file with IC3. Then call your local police non-emergency line and email the PDF to whoever takes the case.

Should I contact the exchange myself?

You can, and it doesn't hurt to try, but their compliance team usually only acts on a request from law enforcement. File the police report first, then forward the case number to the exchange.

Limits

What coins do you support?

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and USDT on Tron (TRC20). USDT on Tron is where most pig-butchering money lives, so that's the primary Tron asset we follow. ERC20 tokens on Ethereum (USDT, USDC on the ETH chain) are not yet traced.

Why didn't you find any exchange in my trace?

Sometimes the money is still moving. Sometimes it went through a wallet we don't yet know belongs to an exchange. Sometimes it was mixed. Try a wider scope. If you have a suspect exchange in mind, send us the address.

I see a wallet labelled as an exchange but the scam was on a different platform. Why?

The labels mean which exchange's wallet the money landed at, not where the original scam happened. Scammers usually move stolen funds to one of the big exchanges to cash out, regardless of where the scam took place.

Ready to Run a Trace?

You only need the wallet address the scammer told you to send money to.

Open the Trace Tool