I sent over $1200 in 3 payments to a person claiming to be a salvage yard.

[damengineer53]

I sent over $1200 in 3 payments to a person claiming to be a salvage yard. He insisted on me sending by friends and family. Do I have any way to get my money back or file charges against this person.  I have saved all the FB messages during the transaction. 

[kernowlass]

@damengineer53 

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.

You would also not be able to open a dispute (apart from one citing an unauthorised transaction), which 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.

[damengineer53]

Yes I know it was very stupid of me.  I thought I was dealing with a reputable source.  I was referred by who I thought was a member of a private group, only to find out the group was not private.  I should have investigated the one referring this place.  If I would have looked at his page, I would have noted he was paobably a gang member.  I also should have investigated the name of the receiver of the paypal account.  The foreign names would have alerted me.  Is there any way that paypal would disclose the address of the receiver of the funds?   I am somewhat hard of hearing and only have a cell phone.  I would like to correspond by email, but paypal is terrible about finding someone to correspond with.