Questions people ask

No. Investment fraud is designed by professionals to manipulate ordinary judgment, and the people who run it are practiced at it. Nobody at this firm will ask you to justify having believed someone. The purpose of a first conversation is to understand the facts, in sequence, so that the legal position can be assessed.

No. An inquiry is an inquiry, and the first consultation is free. If the firm is able to help and you decide to proceed, an engagement is documented in writing, and the scope and fee basis are set out in that document before any work begins. Nothing is owed before then.

Yes. The first consultation is free and carries no obligation. You can describe what happened, ask whether there is anything worth pursuing, and decide afterwards whether you want to go any further.

No, and no legitimate attorney can. Professional rules in most jurisdictions prohibit guaranteeing an outcome, which is why a guarantee of recovery should be treated as a warning sign about the person making it rather than as reassurance. What can be assessed honestly is whether there is a viable claim, against whom, whether that party can realistically be reached, and what pursuing it would involve.

Do not make additional payments solely because someone demands them, and in particular do not pay a fee, tax, clearance or insurance charge that is presented as the last step before a withdrawal is released. There is no such payment that completes the process. If you are unsure, take advice before you send anything.

Cross-border matters are the norm in this field rather than the exception. It makes jurisdiction, service, disclosure and enforcement more complex, and sometimes it makes a claim impractical. The firm accepts inquiries from investors internationally and takes non-US clients, working with co-counsel abroad where a matter requires representation in another jurisdiction. Part of an early assessment is determining honestly whether the firm is able to assist, and what a realistic route would look like if it is.

Usually not on its own. Losses are a normal feature of investing and the law does not compensate for risk that was properly disclosed and knowingly accepted. What can give rise to a claim is a misrepresentation, a non-disclosure, a product sold by someone not licensed to sell it, or trading carried out without authority. The loss is the damage; the misconduct is a separate thing that has to be identified.

By establishing what was represented, who received the money, and whether anyone involved was permitted to do what they did. Those are questions of documentation rather than impression, which is why the first substantive step is always the records rather than the account of events.

It depends on the jurisdiction and on the cause of action, and in some places the period runs from when the fraud was discovered or reasonably could have been rather than from the transaction. Because the answer varies so widely, the practical advice is the same everywhere: find out early rather than assume there is time.

That is one of the first things an investigation establishes, and the answer is frequently not the company named on the website. Payments are commonly routed to a separate entity, a payment processor or an individual. In some matters the realistic defendant is an intermediary — a bank, an exchange or a processor — that had obligations of its own.

Not necessarily. Terms cannot ordinarily excuse fraudulent misrepresentation, and terms imposed by an entity that was never licensed to offer the product raise questions of their own. They do matter, particularly arbitration and choice-of-law clauses, which can determine where and how a claim has to be brought.

It depends on what you agreed to and with whom. Some agreements require arbitration; some claims involving regulated intermediaries have their own forums; others proceed as ordinary civil litigation. Where more than one route exists, choosing between them is part of the strategy rather than a formality.

Communications, platform records, payment records and the documents you were given — in that order of usefulness. Export rather than screenshot wherever the application allows it, keep the originals, and do not edit anything. There is a full list on the preserving evidence page.

Usually not. Gaps are common and they are rarely decisive by themselves. What matters is that you do not delete anything further, and that you are straightforward about what is missing. Some material can also be recovered from the other side of a conversation, from backups, or from the platform itself.

In most cases yes, and it is worth doing regardless of any civil claim. It creates a record, it may connect your matter to others already under investigation, and some banks and reimbursement schemes require a report before they will consider a claim. It is not usually a route to recovering money on its own, and it does not replace legal advice.

Generally not, and often the opposite. There are situations where the sequence and content of a report matter, which is one reason to take advice before making a detailed statement if you are already considering a claim.

Sometimes, particularly if the payment is recent. Transfers can occasionally be recalled or frozen if the receiving institution is notified quickly, card payments may be open to a chargeback within a limited window, and some jurisdictions operate reimbursement arrangements for authorized push-payment fraud. Speed matters more here than almost anywhere else.

Transactions on public blockchains are recorded permanently and can be followed from address to address. Traceable is not the same as recoverable. Where the path ends at a regulated exchange there may be a legal route; where it disperses into unhosted wallets, frequently there is not. Anyone who offers to trace and recover cryptocurrency for an advance fee should be treated with great caution.

Sometimes there is and sometimes there is not, which is an answer worth getting early rather than paying to discover slowly. Where the entity is unreachable, attention usually shifts to the payment chain and to any regulated institution that handled the funds.

Being guided to buy in your own name and then send it on is a deliberate feature of these structures, because it defeats the checks your bank would otherwise apply. It is not evidence that the loss was voluntary.

The firm does not publish a fee schedule, because the right arrangement depends on the matter — what is involved, what pursuing it would take, and what is realistically recoverable. Fees are discussed with you directly. Whatever is agreed is set out in writing before any work begins, including what happens if the matter does not succeed. To ask about fees, email jorge@attorneymirano.com or call 800-897-5422.

Information you give the firm is handled confidentially in accordance with applicable law and the firm’s professional obligations. One important qualification: information sent through this website before an attorney‑client relationship has been established may not be protected as a privileged communication. That is true of every law firm’s website, and any site that tells you otherwise is overstating the position.

Passwords, private keys, seed or recovery phrases, two-factor authentication codes, or full identification-document numbers. No lawyer, bank, exchange or regulator needs those, and nobody who asks for them is any of those things. If the firm needs sensitive material later it will arrange a secure method.

Independently. Look the firm up yourself rather than using a link or number you were sent, verify the attorney and registration number on the public bar register, and call the number published on this website. Impersonation of real law firms is common in this field, and we would rather you checked than assumed.

An attorney is admitted to a bar, appears on a public register, has a verifiable physical identity, and owes enforceable professional duties including duties about client money. A recovery company owes you a contract at best. The distinction matters more in this field than in almost any other, because recovery companies are the preferred disguise of advance-fee fraud.

No. Some matters have no realistic route, and some have a route that would cost more than it could return. Saying so at the assessment stage is part of the service rather than a failure of it.