Scammed through Friends & Family

[jforbes15]

recently scammed due to my own mistakes of not doing much research, he told me to send through friends and family. is there anything at all i could do to get my money back? 

[kernowlass]

@Kathcovy 

Hardly paypals fault you sent a gift of money to a 'friend' !!

And Paypal can't take back ''gifts'' of money it would be illegal.

If you sent a gift using friends/family then of course your friend 'did a runner' as you had purchased nothing.

If you had purchased something you would have used the goods/services option and had buyer protection.

You were the one that negated that buyer protection not paypal.

[tudorguy]

Me too. This will move me to close my account. Google Pay would never **bleep** its customers like this. 

[GSLADS84]

How can you "work towards a resolution" when the scammer is unresponsive? I appreciate the mistake is made by the payer in the first place but surely if a particular user is reported for this type of thing you can block their account and stop them scamming somebody else?

[kernowlass]

@GSLADS84 

Block them for what? You sent a 'gift' of money to someone so they didn't scam you as you were not paying for an item or a service.

If you were you would have used the goods/services option.

Paypal can't force someone to pay a 'gift' of money back to someone.

However if its a website asking on a regular basis for f/f payments and you have the proof they are doing that on their website then yes they can be reported.

[GSLADS84]

@kernowlass you clearly miss my point, I'm well aware of how f + f works but some people are not, and when they send a payment this way because its been requested by the seller then it is a scam because the seller is purposely taking somebody's money via f + f payment with no intention of supplying the goods or services promised and they are free to continue the practice even after being reported. The advice from PayPal to try and resolve with the seller is laughable, if they've just taken somebody's money they're not likely to open a dialogue with the victim, apologise and then issue a refund! Thanks for your helpful response!

[kernowlass]

@GSLADS84 

Sometimes its not a scam and its a mis-typed email address so the recipient will happily refund.

Also Paypal didn't ''just'' say resolve it with the seller, what they actually said was...........

[[ When there's a problem with a friends and family payment, we strongly encourage the sender and recipient to work together toward a resolution. If a resolution can't be met and you paid via card or bank, you may want to reach out to your financial institution to seek other dispute options. ]]

However whilst it may well be a scam, Paypal offered buyer protection but you and others refused and negated that protection offered by sending the money that way, so Paypal cannot foot the bill for your error OR take action against a recipient for accepting a gift of money.

Years ago I got scammed online, not a lot but seemed a lot back then, I learnt from it and moved on. 

[ScammersTool]

Blocked for what?!?

me reporting the account being used by a scammer 

[tudorguy]

In other words, PayPal aids and abets fraudsters who deceive honest users. Got it. 

[kernowlass]

@tudorguy 

You mean when they clearly state on both the web and the app than when you select the friends/family option that you have 0 buyer protection if you use that option?

Then you use that option and its Paypals fault that you were then scammed.

Yeah right.  😉

[Blackrose75]

I also got scammed. The lady told me she was having issues with it going through and gave me an alternative email to send. As soon as I caught on to what was happening, I demanded a refund and they dipped. I called my bank and explained the situation. They gave me a temporary refund but after 2 months I got a letter stating that the fraud department decided that I purposely sent it or someone who had access sent it and they are taking the temporary refund back. So now I have to loose that money 2×s!!! I don't know what to do since I am disabled and only get a certain amount each month!!!! Furious!!!