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Compromised Account Recovery

The account recovery process will be different for every company through which you have the account. In many cases, you will need to contact the support team at this company. You may be asked for some way to prove your identity, which could range from having access to an alternative email address to sending images of your government-issued identification.

If you are attempting to recover your Microsoft account, you can use the resources to begin that process.

You can attempt to recover a compromised Google account by following the instructions .

If the account that you believe to be compromised is your Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ account, you will need to contact the Security Team immediately. The university’s Security Team can be reached at security@kent.edu or (330) 672-5566. If suspicious activity is detected on your account, Security will take actions to secure it. You will be asked to provide proof of identity before access to your account is restored.

Identity Theft

The process of recovering from identity theft can be somewhat complex. Because of this, the Federal Trade Commission has broken down many steps for you to take in order to recover your identity.

In summary, you should file a report with the FTC, contact all banks and companies that were involved in fraudulent activity under your name, and place fraud alerts on your credit accounts. The next session of this page discusses credit and financial recovery in more detail.

You can read through and follow each of these steps . Be sure to be as thorough as possible during this process.

For more details regarding identity theft, including how it occurs and methods of protecting yourself in the future, we recommend reading the United States General Services Administration’s page on the topic .

Recovering Stolen Funds

The difficulty of recovering money from a scammer depends on how they were paid. Did the scammer ask you to send them gift cards or cryptocurrency? If so, then unfortunately there is a very high likelihood that the money cannot be recovered. Regardless, you can still use the instructions to attempt a recovery for gift card funds. For cryptocurrency, you will need to contact the broker or service that you used to purchase and send the cryptocurrency to the scammer.

The Federal Trade Commission has again prepared a list of recommended steps for recovering funds lost in a scam. You can use the steps they provide to alert your bank, dispute charges, and take the necessary actions with the three major credit bureaus.

The three credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) have also prepared steps on how to place freezes and alerts on your credit. You can read Equifax’s instructions , TransUnion’s instructions , and Experian’s instructions .

If the transaction occurred with your credit, debit, or ATM card, you will need to contact your bank. Disputing charges on a credit card is generally more reliable than doing so on a debit or ATM card, but you can still find instructions on disputing debit and ATM transactions . For credit cards, you can use the FTC’s instructions .

You can also attempt to recover money wired to the scammer. However, it is typically not possible to recovery wired money. We still recommend that you read the FTC’s guide on attempting recovery . It is also advisable to contact your bank as soon as possible.

If the money was sent to the scammer through a money transfer app, such as PayPal or Zelle, you will need to contact that company. Each company will have a different set of steps that you will need to take, so we recommend contacting their customer support team for guidance.