You paid. They vanished. The apartment never existed, the seller was a ghost, the « advisor » stopped answering. You are now holding a loss and wondering whether French law can do anything for you — especially from abroad, in English, without knowing where to start.
Here is the uncomfortable truth that most guides skip: the scammer is often the wrong target. They are unfindable, insolvent, or both. The right question is not « how do I find the person who scammed me? » It is « who else — a bank, a notaire, a real estate agent, a financial advisor — failed in a legal duty that made this possible, and carries professional liability insurance that can actually pay? »
France gives you three tools — the criminal complaint, the chargeback, and the civil lawsuit. Used separately, each has real limits. Combined correctly, and pointed at the right defendant, they can recover substantial losses even when the scammer has long gone.
This guide tells you exactly how.
What counts as a scam under French law — and why the label matters
The word « scam » is not a legal category in France. The offence that covers most situations is escroquerie under Article 313-1 of the Criminal Code: obtaining money or a service from someone through fraudulent means — a false identity, a false professional qualification, or what French courts call manœuvres frauduleuses (fraudulent schemes).
The legal threshold matters because it determines which tools you can use.
A simple lie is not an escroquerie. French courts require something more: a staging, a false document, an accomplice, a fake website — some external element that gives the lie credibility and force. A seller who simply fails to deliver what he promised may be liable in contract, but he may not be criminally guilty of fraud. The distinction matters because the criminal route unlocks the most powerful recovery mechanism: the ability to sue the professional who enabled the fraud alongside the criminal proceedings.
The most common fact patterns involving international victims in France:
Rental scams. A fake landlord — often using genuine photos of a real apartment — collects a deposit via bank transfer, then disappears. The listing platform (LeBonCoin, Airbnb, Facebook Marketplace) may bear partial responsibility if it failed to implement basic verification mechanisms.
Property purchase fraud. A false seller or fraudulent agent collects a reservation deposit or compromis deposit. A notaire who executed the payment without verifying the beneficiary’s identity may be held liable.
Investment fraud. A fake financial advisor — sometimes posing as a regulated entity — collects funds for non-existent products. The bank that processed the transfer without flagging obvious warning signs may share responsibility.
Online purchase fraud. Payment made by card for goods never delivered. This is where the chargeback is your fastest and most reliable tool.
Contractor fraud. Advance payment to a fake craftsman or building company. Here, the platform that listed them or the bank that collected the funds without KYC may carry liability.
The first 24 hours — before anything else
The single most costly mistake victims make is spending the first days searching for the scammer. Stop. The evidence deteriorates and the clock on your legal remedies starts running from the moment of the transaction, not from the moment you contact the police.
In the first 24 hours, do exactly this:
Take screenshots of everything — the listing, the conversation, the payment confirmation, the IBAN you were given, the email addresses and phone numbers used. Save them in at least two separate places. These documents are the foundation of every action that follows.
Contact your bank immediately and explain what happened. If the payment was made by card, request a chargeback before doing anything else. If it was a bank transfer, ask your bank to initiate a payment recall — the window for intercepting a wire transfer closes within hours. Do not wait for police confirmation before doing this.
Do not transfer any further money under any circumstances, including to someone claiming they can recover your funds. Recovery scams specifically target people who have just been defrauded.
Filing a police complaint in France
What a police complaint actually does
A criminal complaint (plainte pénale) triggers the French public prosecutor to decide whether to investigate. For small amounts or anonymous scammers, the outcome is frequently a classement sans suite — the file is shelved without prosecution. You need to know this going in.
The complaint remains worthwhile for three reasons even when prosecution does not follow. First, it creates an official record of the loss that supports your bank’s chargeback investigation. Second, if other victims have filed similar complaints, yours may contribute to opening a larger investigation. Third, if the scammer is later identified, your complaint is already on file.
Can I file in English? Can I file from abroad?
Yes to both.
French police stations are equipped with the SAVE system (Système d’Assistance aux Victimes Étrangères), which allows officers to take a statement from a foreign national and issue a receipt in their language.
If you cannot travel to France, you have two options depending on the type of scam:
THESEE is the online platform for internet-based fraud — fake online shops, non-delivery of goods, phishing, rental listing scams. It is accessible from outside France without travelling to a police station. The statement is transmitted directly to the national police. Note that the platform operates in French; if you need assistance navigating it, a lawyer can file on your behalf.
Perceval handles credit card fraud specifically. It is required by most French banks before they will process a chargeback claim for card fraud — think of it as the official declaration that unlocks the bank’s refund obligation.
For all other scams — or if the perpetrator is known by name — you file by registered letter addressed to the Procureur de la République of the tribunal judiciaire with jurisdiction over the place where the offence occurred. You can also send the complaint by email directly to the tribunal. Write in English if necessary; you are not required to translate your complaint.
Plainte vs. main courante vs. signalement — the difference matters
A main courante is a memo, not a complaint. It creates no legal obligation on the prosecutor and opens no proceedings. Do not file a main courante thinking it is equivalent to a complaint — it is not.
A signalement on SignalConso (the DGCCRF consumer fraud platform) triggers an administrative alert, not criminal proceedings. It is useful for putting pressure on a French business and for feeding into regulatory investigations, but it does not give you victim status in criminal proceedings.
Only a plainte pénale gives you legal standing as a victim and opens the door to constitute yourself as a civil party (partie civile) in any resulting instruction.
A word on prescription
The limitation period for escroquerie is six years from the date of the offence. You have time — but do not let that create false comfort on the chargeback side, where the deadlines are far shorter.
The chargeback — your bank’s legal obligations
Two different regimes your bank will not distinguish for you
French banks systematically conflate two different legal mechanisms, and the confusion costs victims money.
The first is the statutory right under Article L.133-18 of the Monetary and Financial Code: if a payment was made without your authorisation — your card details were stolen, a fraudster impersonated your bank — your bank must reimburse you by the next business day. This is a legal obligation, not a commercial gesture. The bank cannot refuse. The deadline to contest is 13 months for transactions within the European Economic Area, 70 days outside it.
The second is the chargeback via the card network (Visa, Mastercard): this applies when you authorised the payment, but the goods or services were never delivered. It is a commercial procedure governed by the card networks’ internal rules, not French law. The bank can refuse to forward your request — but if it does, it is depriving you of a real chance of recovery, and you can challenge that refusal.
To initiate a chargeback for non-delivery, ask your bank to file a dispute using the appropriate reason code: 13.1 (Visa) for merchandise not received, 4853 (Mastercard) for the same. If your bank’s advisor looks blank, say the words « chargeback procedure via the card network » and cite the reason code. Do not let them tell you this is the same as an opposition — it is not.
What the payment method determines
| Payment method | Protection | Realistic outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Credit or debit card | Strong — L.133-18 + network chargeback | Good if reported promptly |
| SEPA bank transfer | Weak — recall possible only in hours | Very difficult once cleared |
| PayPal (Goods & Services) | Good — buyer protection up to 180 days | Generally reliable |
| PayPal (Friends & Family) | None | Not recoverable |
| Western Union / MoneyGram | None | Not recoverable |
| Cryptocurrency | None | Not recoverable |
The most important practical insight in this article: if you paid by bank transfer and discover the fraud after the transfer has cleared, the chargeback route is effectively closed. Your only remaining options are a civil action against the scammer (if identified) or — and this is the point — a liability claim against a professional who failed in a duty that made the fraud possible.
The gross negligence defence — and how to fight it
Banks routinely invoke négligence grave (gross negligence) to refuse reimbursement under L.133-18: you shared your one-time code with a fraudster, you responded to a phishing email, you ignored security warnings during the transaction. Under Article L.133-19, gross negligence on the victim’s part can eliminate the bank’s obligation to reimburse.
What the banks do not volunteer: the threshold for gross negligence is high, and courts have set it narrowly. Being deceived by a sophisticated impersonation of your bank’s interface is not negligence. Believing a caller who knows your name, account number, and recent transactions — all obtained from a data breach — is not negligence. A carefully documented challenge to a refusal, particularly when the deception was sophisticated, frequently results in a reversal.
If your bank refuses, escalate formally: put your objection in writing, invoke L.133-18, request the bank’s written reasons. If unresolved, go to the médiateur bancaire — free, mandatory before any court action, and effective in a significant proportion of cases.
Civil action — and the professionals who can actually pay
If your bank refuses to reimburse, if the chargeback fails, or if you paid by bank transfer and the recall window has closed, this is where the real work begins — and where the most substantial recoveries happen.
The scammer is gone. The question is whether someone else — solvent, insured, regulated — contributed to making the fraud possible by failing in a professional duty they owed you. French professional liability is strict and comprehensively insured. The following are the most frequent and productive targets.
The bank
Beyond the chargeback, your bank may carry direct civil liability under the duty of care it owes you as a payment service provider. Since October 2025, French banks are required to implement Verification of Payee (VoP) — a name-matching check that verifies whether the account holder’s name corresponds to the IBAN before executing a transfer. A bank that processed a transfer to a fraudulent IBAN without running this check has arguably breached a regulatory obligation that was specifically designed to prevent this type of loss.
The bank also carries a duty of vigilance (devoir de vigilance) when transactions present unusual features — a first transfer to a foreign account, an unusual amount, a sudden change of beneficiary details. A bank that ignored obvious red flags when processing your transfer may be liable for the resulting loss.
This is well-established territory in French courts. If your loss arose from a fraudulent impersonation of your bank’s own advisors, the conditions for engaging your bank’s liability in that specific scenario are examined in detail separately. The civil liability claim is separate from and cumulative with the chargeback.
The notaire
A notaire is an officer of public authority (officier ministériel) who bears an absolute professional duty of verification before disbursing funds. If a notaire transferred money to a fraudulent account in connection with a property transaction, they may be personally and professionally liable for the resulting loss.
The concrete standard the courts apply: a notaire is held to the standard of a professional sensibilisé aux fraudes — specifically trained to detect payment fraud. Anomalies that a layperson might miss — an IBAN from an unexpected country, a slight discrepancy in the account holder’s name, a beneficiary designation that does not match the expected party — are precisely what a notaire is paid to catch.
In a case I recently won before the Court of Appeal of Grenoble (CA Grenoble, ch. civ. A, 31 March 2026, RG 25/00357), a notaire was held 80% liable for a €150,000 loss arising from a payment executed on a fraudulent Spanish IBAN. The court found that the RIB presented obvious anomalies — the bank name was absent, the BIC format was irregular, and the document used the word bénéficiaire rather than titulaire du compte. The notaire’s failure to investigate was found to constitute a fault that deprived the client of an 80% chance of avoiding the loss.
You can read more about how to engage a notaire’s professional liability and about what actually goes wrong with notaires in practice.
The real estate agent
An agent immobilier is subject to the Hoguet law and carries a specific professional duty to verify the identity of sellers and landlords and to hold client funds in a dedicated escrow account. An agency that published a fraudulent rental listing without verifying the purported landlord’s identity, or that collected and disbursed a deposit without the required garantie financière, may carry substantial liability.
The conditions for engaging a real estate agent’s liability are well-defined under French law, and the agents’ mandatory professional insurance provides a real recovery fund.
The financial advisor
For investment fraud — the fake platform, the promise of extraordinary returns, the unregulated product — the financial advisor or private banker who directed you toward the product carries a duty of suitability (devoir de conseil) and a duty to verify the regulatory status of any product they recommend. An advisor at a French bank or cabinet de gestion de patrimoine who pushed you toward an AMF-blacklisted investment without disclosing that status is professionally and civilly liable.
The AMF and ACPR jointly maintain a blacklist of fraudulent platforms. Report there in parallel — not for direct compensation, but because regulatory action against the fraud can provide evidentiary support for your civil claim.
The listing platform
LeBonCoin, Airbnb, Booking, and similar platforms carry limited but real liability when they failed to implement basic verification mechanisms that would have detected a fraudulent listing, or when they received prior notice of fraud and failed to act. Platforms operating in France are subject to EU platform liability rules under the Digital Services Act. A formal written notice (mise en demeure) to the platform — documenting that the listing was fraudulent, that you paid through the platform, and that the platform’s verification failures contributed to your loss — often triggers an internal indemnification process that does not require litigation.
Which court, which procedure
If a criminal investigation is open, the most economical approach is to constitute yourself as a civil party (partie civile) within the criminal proceedings. You claim damages directly before the criminal court, carried by an instruction the public prosecutor is funding. The difference between a simple complaint and a plainte avec constitution de partie civile is significant — the latter opens a judicial investigation regardless of the prosecutor’s inclination.
Where no criminal instruction is open — or where your defendant is a professional rather than the scammer — you bring a standalone civil claim before the tribunal judiciaire. The limitation period is five years from the date you could reasonably have known of the harm.
You do not need to be present in France. You can be represented by a French lawyer without appearing. Judgments obtained in France against French defendants are enforceable throughout the EU under the Brussels I bis Regulation without any additional procedure.
A civil action against a professional makes economic sense from approximately €5,000 upward, depending on the clarity of the liability. Below that threshold, the médiateur bancaire and the DGCCRF SignalConso route are more proportionate first steps.
The decision matrix
| Situation | First move | Second move |
|---|---|---|
| Paid by card, goods not received | Chargeback (Visa 13.1 / MC 4853) | THESEE complaint |
| Card details stolen without authorisation | Bank — L.133-18 demand + Perceval | Complaint in person or by letter |
| Bank transfer, fraud discovered within hours | Call bank for immediate recall | Complaint to parquet |
| Bank transfer, fraud discovered days later | Complaint + identify professional liability | Civil action against bank / notaire |
| Rental deposit, fake landlord | THESEE + chargeback if card payment | Civil action against platform or agency |
| Investment fraud | AMF / ACPR report | Civil action against advisor or bank |
| Property fraud via notaire | Complaint + notaire liability claim | Notaire liability |
The mistake that kills most cases
Waiting for the police before contacting the bank.
These two moves are parallel, not sequential. The chargeback clock runs from the date of the transaction — not from the date of the complaint, not from the date the classement sans suite arrives in your mailbox. Victims who correctly file a police complaint but wait three months for a response before contacting their bank about the chargeback have, in many cases, already forfeited their strongest recovery tool.
File the complaint. Contact the bank. Do both, immediately, in parallel.
The second mistake: spending all energy trying to find the scammer. The scammer is designed to be unfindable. The bank that processed your fraudulent transfer without verification, the notaire who wired your funds on an irregular IBAN, the agent who never verified the landlord — they are all still there, carrying professional liability insurance with real money in it. That is where the recovery happens.
When you need a French lawyer
You do not need a lawyer to file a police complaint, to contact your bank about a chargeback, or to report to SignalConso.
You do need a lawyer to engage the liability of a bank, a notaire, or a real estate agent. These are sophisticated adversaries with experienced in-house legal teams, and the argument about négligence grave, devoir de vigilance, and the scope of professional duty requires someone who litigates these cases regularly.
You also need a lawyer if you want to file a plainte avec constitution de partie civile — the form of complaint that forces the opening of a judicial investigation. Drafted correctly, it cannot be shelved. Drafted as a two-page memo, it will be.
If you have been defrauded in France and believe a bank, a notaire, an agent, or a financial institution may share responsibility for your loss, I am available for a consultation.
Valentin Simonnet is an English-speaking member of the Paris Bar, trained at University College London. He represents international clients before French courts.
