Here's my situation. I "bought" a domain via Sitepoint.com (through their auction service). The domain's BIN was made by another user. I PM'd the seller offering a bit more than that price and he accepted my offer. He gave me his paypal address. I sent payment to him immediately. He private messaged me saying the domain is mine and that he's going to transfer the domain after he gets back from "dinner". I have every reason to believe that he is scamming me. I feel as if I'm never going to speak with him again. Is there any legal action I can take here? I've already contacted Sitepoint, Paypal, and my bank. None of these are giving me a direct or timely response. Any help? Thanks, K
Did he send it to you when he got back from dinner? If not, check the rules on the Sitepoint forum to see if they offer any recourse for you
No he didn't. I could care less about my sitepoint credits. I want my $275 back. Is this possible? He is responding to my emails. Is it possible to get some sort of IP trace in order to press charges? I'm willing to go all out
Not trying to be rude here , but wasn't it foolish on your part to go by the deal through PM and that too a 275$ deal ? I would love to know if sitepoint offers any help . Anyway , good luck with the recovery , I hope you get the site or your money back .
It's called "integrity". Side-stepping the process, you're now asking for justice. It's kind of ironic. Of course, I hope you get your money or the domain.
You could view the headers on the email and probably get his home/work IP address, then do a whois on the IP address to get the procedure for reporting abuse. From here you can report him for fraud. This however will probably at the most get him disconnected from his ISP, although this is unlikely. If however you were to report it as a crime and it was treated as a crime (unlikely) then the ISP would probably have to hand over his details to the police when they are provided with his IP. This again will be unlikely as the police would probably not go to that much bother for such a small issue (in their eyes). You could also search the net for his email address and or combinations of it and try to find public profiles on forums and pester him in front of his peers in a bid to get your money back. You could also do a whois on the domain name and try to get his address.
Ofcourse its very much possible to detect the IP from the emails... and try to contact paypal and explain them all the things in detail that the transaction was not satisfied... and most of all call paypal and give the copy of the emails of chat you have done with him.... Plus just raise a dispute in paypal this will help you more...
I feel bad about $275... hopefully you have learn your lesson and next time you will follow the rules.
$275 is a big amount! If you still didn't get the domain, probably he is a scammer. Some members gave some good information on IP tracking, do what they said. Also, I think, You can always ask PayPal to refund the money providing the evidence that you didn't get the product. Probably they would charge his credit card (if verified with CC) or they would limit his account. All we could hope is he hasn't emptied his PayPal. I wish you would get your money back.
Try to provide Paypal a screenshot of the deal, and yes, you are able to track the IP assigned to that specific email. Meti
Here I think it will waiste of time if you go for catching the scammer even you try to get back the domain. According to you situation the first one who can help you out is Paypal. They can chargeback him unless the scammer haven't emptied or closed the account already. So, open a dispute and claim it to paypal investigators immediately. And usually for the large amount of transactions, paypal hold the money and do the investigation immediately. So, you might get your money back easily. But in this case, you must have geniune, verified paypal account not which use VCC to verify. Regards,
I'm pretty sure Paypal do not accept non-tangible goods in disputes. I believe they only consider physical goods which need to be delivered. Items such as domains and hosting etc. are not covered.
Rules are put into place to protect everyone. By choosing to sidestep the rules and going through PM in Sitepoint, you set yourself up to be scammed. The person who bid at BIN should have received the domain and you bidding beyond BIN in PM was unfair to him. As far as Paypal, they will do very little with a digital item. As far as legal recourse, you would have to be in the same country and same providence or state to get any action. At most it would be a small claims court and they can't enforce anything outside of their area. I hope you get your domain or money but I think you just bought yourself a $275 life lesson.
Ha. Yea I guess that's the only way to think right now. Haha. I laugh because his responses were so comical. Here's a few bits: My response: I've contacted my bank to stop the payment. This cost me about $25 total but it should take care of it.
I hope you get your money back, but I have to admit you've really scared that scammer, but he deserves it.
Newb / Rookie question: I've never purchased an existing domain. How did the purchaser "side step the process"?
I think he was talking about how I took the transaction out of the actual auction and through private messaging. The fake domain was for auction at Sitepoint.com. The domain was claimed at the BIN price for $250. So I PM'd the user offering $275. The side step was me PM'ing him. I GOT MY MONEY BACK BY THE WAY!
Glad u got your money back mate!! How did you get it? from the scammer himself? or with Paypal/Bank??
I had to contact my bank for a form to fill out to stop the payment. I had to get it notarized though. I had them fax me the form, I filled it out, went to UPS and they notarized it for $10. I then faxed it back to the bank and they took care of the rest. Today, Paypal emailed me the following: