The FCA's cryptoasset application window opens on 30 September. That date is already being used in cold emails that claim the regulator is holding stolen coins and needs a fee, a seed phrase, or remote access to "authorise" a refund. It is not. The gateway is a form for firms that want permission under the new cryptoasset regime. It is not a victim desk. The FCA has said it cannot get your coins back and will not contact you to say it is holding them. Almost 5,000 fake-FCA scam reports arrived in the first half of 2025. Lords debate on the Bank of England's payments innovation mandate today will produce another wave of cloned letterheads. A statutory objective is not a tracing pack. A Firm Checker screenshot in an email is not the register. Search register.fca.org.uk yourself. Do not click the link in the message.
If pounds left a UK current account, call the bank first. Eligible authorised push payment claims can be reimbursed up to £85,000. That scheme does not cover coins already sent to a wallet. Then file Report Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or reportfraud.police.uk. Scotland uses 101. Keep the crime reference. If the pitch claimed regulation, report the firm to the FCA after you have checked the register on a page you typed. APP reimbursement stops at Faster Payments and CHAPS. It does not follow ether out of MetaMask. Legitimate practices do not invoice in bitcoin first, do not ask for AnyDesk, TeamViewer, seed phrases, or private keys, and do not guarantee a refund against the APP cap or an FCA "gateway fee."
What a real file looks like this month
Once coins sit in a wallet the clone controls, the exhibit is a forensic pack: transaction hashes, dates, amounts, exchange names, chat logs, URLs, and screenshots. Hong Kong-registered tracing in the aidataintelligence.io style is the map. Swiss-registered counsel such as Sarah Legal start with that map. Recovery is never automatic. It depends on whether the coins can still be traced to an exchange or a wallet a court can reach, and on the facts of that client's file. A firm that can start tomorrow for anyone, and wants payment in crypto today, is often not doing court work. Key Coin victims were billed in bitcoin after the winding-up. The same script now swaps in "30 September authorisation" as the fake deadline.
The gateway date is a filter, not a promise
Firms file between 30 September and 28 February 2027. The full regime starts on 25 October 2027. None of those dates moves stolen coins. Anyone who says the NCA, the SFO, or the Insolvency Service needs a crypto fee to unlock an FCA refund is running the second fraud. For the sequence after the bank call, see how crypto recovery works. A crime number is evidence. An authorisation window is a handbook date. Neither is a credit on your exchange.