Got defrauded; what to do?

Parent Cafe
1

So I had a transaction with a person who sells merchandise in China. He’s a very popular person for this type of merchandise, recommended by many. I talked to the person via email and he directed me to sent him money ($250) via Zelle to an account. So a few days later, I talked to the person by phone and it turns out that the email account was stolen by someone else a while back (I didn’t know that of course) and that I had been talking to a scammer.

So I disputed this with the bank and of course, since I authorized the transaction, there wasn’t anything they could do about it, they suggested to me to contact the person I sent the money to. Of course, the scammer didn’t respond to my further emails.

What I’m irked at is the bank did nothing, they didn’t interview me, they didn’t ask for any email paper trail (I have digital signatures but that probably won’t help). As such, the next person that gets scammed is going to go through the same BS. Anyhow the question is this - is there someone else I should be contacting about this to further investigate? Federal Trade Commission? Local police? Judge Judy?

please only answer the original question on the 3rd paragraph.

2

You authorized a $250 payment to an imposter. Not much anyone can do. Not sure who would have jurisdiction over someone in china. Maybe post something on the scam alert websites. Anytime I have a concer, I do a search and stuff usually pops up.

3

I’m sorry this happened to you How frustrating! Thre’s Probably not much you can do; maybe contact FBI? Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OOC)?

Zelle does not appear to afford the same protections as, for example PayPal or Venmo - https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/zelle-users-are-finding-out-the-hard-way-theres-no-fraud-protection/

4

https://www.identitytheft.gov/

Your state’s department of justice. Here is my state’s webpage for filing a consumer protection complaint: https://www.doj.state.wi.us/dls/consumer-protection/how-file-consumer-complaint

Your state’s equivalent of Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection: https://datcp.wi.gov/Pages/Programs_Services/FileConsumerComplaint.aspx

5

you can report it to FBI:

https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-fraud-schemes/internet-fraud

6

nternational money orders go down a black hole. There ins no mechanism for Banks to deal with it. My wife had a business buying supplies overseas and learned to use credit cards only for such transactions. Banks can deal with credit card transactions. You can report it, but the FBI is not likely to put the resources on this issue. They would have to have the authorities in China locate this guy on a cash transaction. He/she is gone.

7

Nothing to do, and nothing anyone can do.

Note that Zelle specifies it’s only for friends and family, people you know and trust. PayPal Friends and Family is another payment method that shouldn’t be used in those circumstances.

8

I encourage you to report this, even if the authorities can’t do anything for you specifically.

9

The weird thing about this is that I am a (supposedly) a computer security expert and even I got duped on this. Though this was by weird happenstance - if I was a new customer I probably would have been more diligent in research, but I had been dealing with this guy for 3 years so I didn’t suspect anything wrong even when the name of the Zelle person that came up wasn’t a familiar name. I am irked by the original guy though because he probably should have figured out to notify everyone that his email address got stolen and he was doing business via another medium.

10

OP - I was just about to say that the seller may have some responsibility on this. I would contact the person to see if he could send you the merchandise, otherwise you would post on his review that his email was hacked and you never received the merchandise. He may make you whole so not to alarm his future buyers.