The Payment Systems Regulator's authorised push payment reimbursement rules cover Faster Payments and CHAPS inside the UK. They do not cover a transfer you already made on a crypto exchange, or a payment sent overseas. The FCA's own consumer page states that difference in plain language. Eligible APP claims can be reimbursed up to £85,000, usually within five working days and no later than 35, though a firm may keep the first £100. That scheme started on 7 October 2024. It is still the first call if pounds left a UK current account to a mule after a clone-broker pitch. It is not a tracing desk for ether that left MetaMask. The Home Office Fraud Strategy 2026 to 2029 flags crypto in 66% of 2024 investment-fraud reports. That statistic is why recovery impersonators now sell a fake "FCA APP top-up" the week after a victim files Report Fraud.
Call the bank first if sterling moved. 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 and search the Firm Checker yourself. Do not click a link in the email that claims to be the register. The FCA 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. Key Coin victims are still being billed in Bitcoin for that same lie.
Where the £85,000 line stops
If you paid a UK account in your own name as a stepping stone, then bought crypto, the mandatory APP scheme may not treat that hop as an in-scope push to a fraudster. Ombudsman decisions still look at whether the payment firm acted fairly under the Consumer Duty. That is a complaint, not an automatic credit. 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.
What is not a recovery desk
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. Anyone who says the NCA, SFO, or Insolvency Service needs a crypto fee to unlock an £85,000 reimbursement is running the second fraud. For the sequence after the bank call, see how crypto recovery works. A crime number is evidence. It is not a credit on your exchange.