Okay, this is going to be somewhat of a long story, but please try read the whole thing. I was buying services from someone online. The seller had great feedback and was what appeared to be a honest person. The seller was selling the service with "money back guarantee" or refund. Basically if she failed to deliver the service within 90 days she would refund the money. This started way back in September. All the sudden she was failing to deliver my orders and everyone else's orders. She then decided to make up a bunch of random excuses and told me 4 different times that I would receive a payment within the month. Little did I know - The name she was using was a fake name, she was lying about a bunch of different things, she had scammed he over $8,000 at this point, and scammed a ton of other people (over 20 people, probably closer to 50 people). On top of that she had said in multiple emails she owed me the money and the money was coming. Of course it still hasn't come. I brought this to my local police as I had done research and found out who she really is and where she lives (happens to be a hour away). After about a month (which was Monday) I received a call from the detective for the case I had filed. I talked to the detective about the case and he said this was a civil issue and not a criminal issue so there was nothing he could do. My question is - what makes this a civil issue? He (the detective) claimed "since she had done some of the work but didn't finish this makes it civil" - Is that really what makes this a civil case is the fact she did work for one of my payments and the never worked on the others? Also if intent is the issue how is using a fake name, private protecting all your domains as soon as the first "scam" complaint comes in (aka going into hide mode), stops responding to emails, won't send any money/refund, eventually deleted the email completely (as it was a type of email), she scams 20+ people for thousands of dollars... - how is that not intent to defraud? I guess another question would be what can I do next? I am a college student and made a huge ass mistake of trusting this b*tch and I literally have $400 to my name right now. How can I even get an attorney involved, what kind of fees would I be looking at? Thanks any advice would be helpful - PS please don't post if you just have to say "don't be an idiot"... I already realize that, it happened
in australia, (your country will be different) there are some free legal aid places (several months wait normally) there are also people that will take your case pro-bono. Last time i had a severe issue needing legal advice i met in person with someone who spent 1-2 hours giving me detailed advice, and they offered to handle all correspondence between myself and the other person. I dont think you can do anything for the other victims, but if you could find a lawyer who is willing to take your case (without any upfront costs), and if they then handle all correspondence, then you are likely to start getting somewhere. i would like to think that trading under a fake name is illegal, i would like to think that if the info on the domain names is wrong is supposedly grounds to have them removed, i would doubt that this person has paid taxes on their income, or even declared their income..... in some places, not paying taxes is more serious then ripping off someone. As long as this doesnt cost you too much, i would encourage you to go for it. I too have been scammed, and its horrible when i see that person going on forums taking fresh victims when they should really be in prison.
What makes this a civil matter is that at its core, it is a contractual dispute. She took money but did not fully perform the services she promised. It happens all the time in business and except for egregious cases is handled as a civil matter. If it was a massive scheme and obviously intentional, then it could cross over into intentional fraud. But not every "money back guarantee" that is not fulfilled become a matter of criminal fraud. As far as her not delivering other people's orders - that really has nothing to do with you, so I would not waste time on worrying about the details of other people's business with her. You could obviously hire a lawyer to go after her and the cost and likelihood of success will drive that decision. I would think you are unlikely to find a lawyer to do it for free and I would imagine it simply would not be worth the time to pursue with a lawyer. Where I live, cases can take years to go to trial so any justice would not help you quickly. Someone else mentioned taxes... that is purely speculative and again is not something that will get you any money back and with no evidence in that regard is not something you should waste your time on. You could try to sue her in small claims court if you have her real information. The limits should allow you to get back most of your money and that might be the easiest, fastest way to proceed, especially if she lives close to you. Good luck.