Why Is Everyone Suddenly Calling You About a Tariff Refund?
What Importers Need to Know Before Responding

If you run a business that imports goods into the United States, your phone has probably been ringing. Your inbox too. LinkedIn messages, cold emails, maybe even automated voice calls — all of them promising to recover your IEEPA tariff refund, all of them urgent, all of them asking for your trust.

You are not imagining it and you are not being singled out. This is happening to hundreds of thousands of US importers right now, and before you respond to any of them, there are a few things you need to understand.

Why your phone is ringing

In February 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — the IEEPA tariffs that affected nearly every category of imported goods from February 2025 through early 2026 — were unconstitutional. The government collected approximately $166 billion from more than 330,000 importers across 53 million customs entries. By court order, that money is being refunded.

CBP launched its refund portal, called CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries), on April 20, 2026. The moment that went live, an already-active market of recovery services, customs brokers, law firms, and frankly some opportunists all intensified their outreach to every importer they could find.

CBP itself issued an official warning on May 7, 2026, about the surge in unsolicited outreach, noting that scammers are using email, phone, and social media to target importers, and that any external website or unknown party offering to process refunds should be treated with caution.

So the calls are real — and so is the concern about them.

Not all of it is fraud. But not all of it is what it appears to be either.

The situation is more nuanced than a simple scam warning. Much of the cold outreach you are receiving is from legitimate businesses — customs brokers, accounting firms, and trade services providers who genuinely can help with some parts of the refund process. The problem is not that they are lying. The problem is that many of them are not telling you the full picture of what they can and cannot do.

Since the Supreme Court struck down IEEPA tariffs, importers have been flooded with cold calls, unsolicited emails, and LinkedIn messages from firms promising to "recover your IEEPA tariffs" — many of which didn't exist six months ago. The pattern echoes previous large-scale government refund programs. PPP loans attracted the same dynamic. So did the Employee Retention Tax Credit program, which generated a wave of aggressive promoters, many of whom are now under IRS investigation.

IEEPA refunds involve significantly more money — and the filing mechanisms are unfamiliar to most businesses, which is exactly the kind of environment where incomplete advice does real damage.

The one thing most callers are not telling you

CAPE is a one-shot filing system.

That sentence carries more weight than it might appear to. When a CAPE Declaration is submitted and CBP rejects it — because of a CSV formatting error, an incorrect entry number, an ACH configuration problem, or any other technical issue — that is not the start of a revision process. In most cases, the affected entries cannot simply be resubmitted. The refund for those entries may be permanently forfeited.

As of mid-May 2026, CBP data showed that 1,880 refunds had already been delayed because ACH payment information had not been properly provided — and that is only the delays that are trackable. Rejected declarations due to CSV errors do not come with the same visibility.

The companies cold-calling you are selling speed. They are not leading with the risk. Those are two very different conversations.

What your customs broker can do — and what they cannot

Your existing customs broker may well have reached out to offer to handle your IEEPA refund. They probably can file a CAPE Declaration on your behalf for Phase 1 entries — and for many importers with straightforward entry histories, that may be perfectly adequate.

But there are things a broker cannot do:

They cannot file CIT litigation. Approximately 37% of IEEPA-affected entries are finally liquidated — meaning the 180-day protest window has already closed and the CAPE portal cannot process them. The only recovery pathway for those entries is litigation through the Court of International Trade, which requires a licensed customs attorney admitted to the CIT. No broker can do this.

They cannot protect your HTS review under privilege. If your broker reviews your historical entry data and finds a misclassification — meaning goods entered under the wrong tariff code — that conversation is legally discoverable. A CBP audit could access it. When an attorney conducts the same review, it is protected by attorney-client privilege. The distinction is significant.

They cannot evaluate your class action exposure. A wave of class action lawsuits is actively targeting importers that passed IEEPA tariff costs to customers and are now claiming refunds. A broker cannot assess that risk. An attorney can, and under privilege.

None of this means you should dismiss your broker. It means you should understand exactly where their authority ends.

Four questions to ask any company that contacts you

Before you respond to any cold call, email, or LinkedIn message about your IEEPA tariff refund, ask these four questions. Legitimate operators in this space will answer them without hesitation.

1. Can you file CIT litigation for finally-liquidated entries, or only CAPE?
If they can only handle CAPE, they cannot recover the 37% of entries that need court action.

2. Will my entry-history review be protected by attorney-client privilege?
If the answer is no, or if they seem uncertain, that is a compliance risk you need to understand before handing over your entry data.

3. What happens if my CAPE Declaration has an error — can we refile, or is that entry gone?
A competent operator will give you a straight answer about the one-shot risk. An incompetent or dishonest one will tell you not to worry about it.

4. Are you a licensed customs attorney admitted to the Court of International Trade?
This is a verifiable credential. If they cannot confirm it, they cannot do the full scope of what this recovery may require.

What to do now

If you imported goods subject to IEEPA tariffs between February 2025 and February 2026, and your estimated total tariff payment was $100,000 or more, you likely have a legitimate claim worth pursuing. Filing windows are limited — delaying means forfeiting the right to claim.

Check your eligibility at TariffRecoveryGroupUSA.com — no upfront cost. Process handled by experienced US legal teams.

Frequently Asked Questions