Just got friggin SCAMED.. :(

[lilbios]

BHW I would appreciate your advice on this one.
This may be nothing to you, but I would highly appreciate it. Please!!!

On another, smaller, fourm I wanted to make some extra money so I decided to sell my $40 Amazon credit. I was going to dropship some stuff for people.
Anyways, I get a message and It was from a higly RESPECTED member of the fourm. He had a hell load of rep and transactions and whatnot...
So I bought some stuff for him, entered his address and shipped it to him using an Amazon Prime free trial.

I tracked his order and it showed that it was at the "doorsteps." I asked for payment, and he said that he was low on funds. Sure okay? I'm a pretty chill person w.e. I didn't care at that moment as long as I got the money right...? He adds that next Friday ( this pass Friday) he would get paided and give me more money for my "inconvience"
Then the friggen scammer dips and I'm left here speechless.
I log in to the same fourm today and it turns out that he scammed other members on there too. Total is in the thousands....

So he took my $35 worth of stuff and never paid me.
I'm 16... I don't have a job or anything like that. $35 is like my whole life right there. And yes, I do know how crazy you guys think I am but I'm just so sad and speechless.
Also, he gave different names/addresses for all 20+ people that he scammed. Is that not fraud? I know for sure he live in Florida... Is there any way I can hunt this guy down?!?
Please please pleaseeeeee help me I am seriously stuck.. I can't believe this is happening to me !!

 

[Bryan]

who's the scammer? naming him/her would be a better idea, that way we'll know who to stay away

 

[lilbios]

This didn't happen here. Like i said, "On another, smaller, fourm." I honestly don't think naming the person would help since he is already labeled a "scamer" on that fourm

 

[seomadness]

That sucks. Don't think you can hunt him down. On the bright side it's only 35 bucks. Learn from this and move on.

 

[CyberCriminal]

Report him to admin ASAP. That's the only thing you can do right now.

 

[lilbios]

Admin knows, the whole fourm knows but unfortunately he scammed a lot of people before he took off

 

[PitchBlack*]

Take it as a loss and move on.

 

[Sanitarium]

$35 is like my whole life right there.

Please please pleaseeeeee help me I am seriously stuck.. I can't believe this is happening to me !!

Pretend like some cents fell in a pile of shit and you're too good to get your fingers into it!

i know how it feels, but the money is small for the lesson and the longer you hold on to this event at your age it can mess with your development! Your goal is to try to not let it happen again

 

[srb888]

Getting scammed is part and parcel of almost all businesses, especially so on the internet. It happens both ways -- to buyers as well as sellers. You got scammed only for $35, but it could well have been times 10 or more. If everything else fails to recover your money or items, then think that it was a fees you paid to learn a hard lesson and move on.

You say he had scammed plenty of others; it means possibly you were not his first victim. Why didn't you do a short research on the forum about his activities? You could have used Google too to find any thread on that forum stating he was not an upright member... next time, just to keep the probability low, create a search string and do a fast search in G...

For example, if the sale is extra-valuable to you then use G search with >>
site:TheForumName.ext +membername scam OR cheated OR [whatever]



... and search G. (You get the idea). Same way, you can use his forumname and check whether G finds him on any other forum; may be you will find no such mention, but you may get lucky and may find a mention... just visit that forum and see if he is banned there. This can be a long process but if ever you get an instinct about your prospective buyer or seller or a product, then go to G and do a search... the search will take only about 10 minutes, but the results could reveal a great deal about it.

If you know any additional information about the member, put it in the search... it may not even take you 10 minutes to perform the search and any further reading, but it would mean a better protection for your transaction with a prospect.


Normally, most people, esp. experienced traders, do get such "intuitions" most of the times... and definitely if you get even 1% suspicious about any person or thing (for example, a product or service), carry out a small investigation in advance (better before than after the transaction, isn't it?)



This seems a bit funny idea but it can really get some great inside information pretty fast. Can save you from a possible trap, a lot of time, and also money later on.

For a good buyer or seller, G can prove to be a great friend in saving plenty of future headaches or heart-burns.

There would of course be other solutions but the above is what I feel can help a lot of cases -- your particular case or other such common situations.

Any way, IMO it was a bad experience for you, but move on if you can't recover that loss... I feel sorry that you got into a hard deal... learn from it, try to also learn how you can overcome such situations in future, make your sales loss-proof (somehow), and move on.

Wishing you success & happy trading in future!

HTH