Scammed out of an art piece

[S_CyberAngel]

Hello! My company and I paid an individual 62 USD on March 17, 2021 for an art piece for my companies concept of a vocal synth (think Hatsune Miku the VOCALOID) and we were duped. We asked for an art piece INSPIRED by this  .

Instead, we got a traced image like this.

We specifically asked for it to not be a blatant copy and then we found out we've been scammed through a couple of art friends on the net. It turns out this person is in a group of scammers who trace and steal assets and sell them as art. We are hoping to get our money back but the individual we "commissioned" has not been cooperative and refuses to refund us. We were told to use Friends & Family payment as a method since it wouldn't charge the artist to accept the payment, instead of the standard Business model. Is there any way we can get our money back?

[kernowlass]

@S_CyberAngel 

A friends / family (or gift payment) is intended as a transfer of funds from family or friends to one another. For this reason, there is no processing fee when payment is made with bank or PayPal balance.
However as it is a gift payment, there is also no Buyer protection as no goods or services should have been exchanged.

If he was not a close mate or family member you should never use that option as it enables the seller to evade paying his paypal fees and negates your buyer protection at the same time....Paypal are not going to help you get a refund when you helped the seller con paypal out of their fee for providing him a service of processing his payment for him.

You would also not be able to open a dispute apart from one citing an unauthorised transaction but that would be automatically closed as you did authorise the initial payment.

Be careful as using that option for purchasing goods is against Paypal rules and can lead to account limitation.

If you funded your paypal payment via a credit card then contact your card issuer and see if they will help you but unfortunately they may decline as well as it was a gift payment.