Introduction

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to share that you have been a victim of a digital crime. I recently received a sponsorship on my Buy Me a Coffee page from someone who went through this. Stories like these are part of why I spent my career in online investigations and domain anti-abuse operations, and why I write this blog today. Over the years, one of the most painful lessons I have learned is that being victimized online often means finding that the support systems we expect to protect us are nowhere to be found. In the world of cybercrime, justice is almost always entirely out of the question.

So why are things this way, and what can you actually do about it?

When Occam's Razor Meets Criminal Justice

Defined loosely, Occam's Razor is a problem-solving principle that suggests the simplest explanation—the one with the fewest variables—is usually the correct one. When applied to criminal justice, this principle explains why simple crimes like petty theft are often resolved, while complicated financial crimes can take years to investigate and never see the inside of a courtroom.

An Example of Complexity

Cybercrime is fundamentally borderless, yet our legal systems are tethered to geography. A bad actor sitting in a scam compound in Southeast Asia can use a domain registered in a Caribbean nation to target a retiree in Ohio. For a local prosecutor, the jurisdictional hurdles are a nightmare. Investigating a crime that crosses three continents for a loss of a few thousand dollars is something agencies are seldom willing to pursue. It becomes a cold, arbitrary calculation where "the juice is not worth the squeeze." When the cost of an international investigation exceeds the potential for recovery or a successful extradition, the case is shelved.

A Breakdown of the Friction

Even if the crime feels straightforward to the victim, the variables involved for law enforcement are staggering:

• Resource Gaps: The officer receiving the report may lack specialized training in digital forensics or have no idea how the Domain Name System (DNS) is exploited.
• The Referral Loop: Local departments often refer victims to federal agencies, where they join a massive queue and must restart the entire reporting process.
• Safe Havens: Bad actors often reside in countries that refuse to extradite suspects or actively sanction cybercriminal activity.
• The "Mule" Reality: The bank account you sent money to rarely belongs to the kingpin. Usually, it belongs to a Money Mule, often another victim who has been tricked into "working from home" or "helping a friend."

The Registrar and Registry Roadblock

Because this is a blog about DNS, it is important to call out the entities that provide the infrastructure for these scams: the registrars and the registries. To an investigator, these entities hold the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of the person who bought the domain. However, these companies have no interest in turning that data to a victim.

Unless they are compelled by a court order or a subpoena from a jurisdiction that has direct authority over them, they will not share registration details. Even if you manage to obtain a legal order, the data they have to turn over is likely useless. Professional scammers do not use their real names. They use:

• Stolen credit cards to pay for registrations.
• Fake or stolen identities for the WHOIS data.
• Throwaway email accounts and VPN proxies to hide their IP origins.

Not only are the registrars and registries uninterested in helping you without a fight, the data they eventually yield is often just a handful of more dead-end leads.

Take Meaning from Loss

Once you have exhausted your options for recovery, the best thing you can do is take steps to harden your digital life and educate those around you.

Personal Protection: Guardio

If you have lost trust in your own ability to spot a scam, a specialized protective service is a worthwhile investment. I suggest Guardio. Unlike traditional antivirus that scans files on your hard drive, Guardio is a lightweight browser extension and app that scans the web in real-time.

It specifically monitors for "bad behavior" like malicious scripts, browser hijackers, and phishing domains before they ever load on your screen. Because Guardio uses advanced heuristics to identify sites that are too new or exhibit scam-like patterns, it catches threats that standard blacklists might miss.

The Financial Safety Net: Cyber Insurance

Check with your home insurance provider or business agent about Personal Cyber Insurance. Many modern policies now offer affordable add-ons that provide a financial safety net for identity restoration, cyber extortion, and even certain types of financial fraud. Having this policy in place ensures that you have a professional team to call who actually has the resources to assist with the fallout.

From Shame to Shield

Finally, the most powerful thing a victim can do is transform their loss into a shield for others. Scammers rely on the silence of their victims. They count on you feeling too embarrassed to tell your friends how you were tricked.

By speaking up and explaining exactly how the phishing site looked or how the scammer gained your trust, you turn a point of shame into a point of education. You are not at fault for being manipulated by professional criminals. By sharing your story, you ensure the bad actor only gets to win once.

Victim's Recovery Checklist

1. Freeze Your Credit: Contact major credit bureaus to prevent new accounts from being opened.
2. Enable Phishing-Resistant MFA: Use an authenticator app or hardware key (like a YubiKey).
3. Report to IC3: File a formal report at ic3.gov.
4. Document Everything: Save emails, screenshots of the phishing site, and transaction IDs immediately.
5. Notify Your Bank: Make sure your financial institution is aware of the loss and follow any of their instructions, if applicable.

Conclusion

The digital world has moved faster than our ability to police it. While it is frustrating that the simple clarity of Occam's Razor often leaves cybercrime victims without a path to justice, your journey doesn't have to end in defeat. By adopting better tools, securing your finances with insurance, and most importantly, breaking the silence, you move from being a target to being a defender. The system may have failed, but you don't have to.