I've been scammed - I've learned a lesson

Now this really pissed me off. Ok here is what happened.

A guy contacted me and said he was interested in few of my domains for sell. I said ok. We have talked on MSN and have mutually agreed on our trade: two domains for $100. So far it seemed fine. We've agreed to use a paypal as a payment option. So he sent me money. I've received the payment. Now I have pushed the domains to his godaddy account. He has comfirmed that he got the domains and his last words were: "Thanks for a great deal. Pleasure to trade with you." Seems alright until this moment.

On the next day I got an email from paypal that they are investigating a transaction... the buyer has requested a full refund. That really surprised me because he's comfirmed that he got the domains alright and he's satisfied with the trade. So I tried to contact him via MSN and email so we could peacefully resolve this problem. However he hasn't been online since then (it's been few days). The paypal has taken hold of $100 from my account and has refunded back to the buyer (I don't want to go public with his name yet... there's still a chance that he will come back online and we'll be able to solve this problem). At the moment situation is like this: he got my domains and he got back also his money. So I've got scammed pretty bad.

What should I do? I guess there's nothing I can do now to get my money back... Well $100 is pretty much money here where I live so I'm really pissed off.

Well I have learned a lesson the harder way. Any thoughts about this?

Any advices to prevent happening this again to me?

Thanks for any feedback

 

If I were you,I will post that guy's user name here.Just trade with users who owns good reputation next time.

 

Hmm. Seems to be the Modus Operandi of some scammers. They arrange to buy domains, usually at a price that's a bit too tempting to turn down, get the domains pushed in Godaddy after making a payment via Paypal then reverse the payment or the Paypal account has been phished.

It sucks.

 

Just out of curiosity, how many iTraders did that guy have?

 

Man this seems to be a REGULAR occurance, i think the safest way to trade is escrow, ecrow.com even have a special setup for domains. My advice for future transactions.

 

So what happen now? Is there any sort of chance getting his $100 back?

I just hope that those kind a people will be electrocuted with their PC keyboard.

 

Yes, it's getting out of hand. It is really up to the sellers to take steps to protect themselves by, as you suggest, using escrow.com, or even moneybookers.com since a chargeback cannot be initiated.

Edit:

Nope. Nor the domains.

 

Make his name public ....

No other stuff to do

 

The least you can do is name him so other members will not fall victim to their scam.

 

10000% AGREE!! although its hard to swallow being scammed getting their name out is the MOST important step to take, although it wont help in getting your domains back or money as mentioned by mcfox, it will prevent other members from falling into the same trap.

Sometimes on DP if the "scammer" sees themselves being heavily flammed then they sometimes step up an get it resolved pleading some innocent error blah blah blah... Let us know who he is so we can get cracking on him/her

 

Yeah. I'll give him 1-2 days and then I will go public with his name (and email). By the way, he contacted me at another webmaster forum but I'm sure he has an account also here at DP.

By the way, what is a better (= more secure) alternative to Paypal? Something that works similar but is more secure.

What about neteller.com? Does anybody use it?

 

Displaying the name would not really get his money back. And do scammers will still hang around buzzing with the account?

 

no it won't. but it might save the next person some $$$

so who we talking about?
its been a couple of days already, right?

 

Ok. He've contacted me at v7n forums:

- his nickname is domainer there
- his paypal email morningstarllc@hotmail.com
- his msn is lili.joon@yahoo.com (nick lili.joon Joon)

I'm not sure what is his username here at DP though. But he got an account for sure.

 

Hmm.. Got the same amount scammed here at dp, sometime back, bad memories

 

watch out a dp member named gudez too.. he has just stolen my domain names.