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? 

[AlanCee]

I've just fallen victim to this, because they told me they couldn't do the whole products and services because they had a new account and had never used PayPal before, turns out that was a lie and I never knew that, I feel pure stupid now, as I always use the Products and Services when using PayPal but this time I didn't and I've been scammed 😩

[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 

[PJ310]

I agree.. also if they were really friends & family they would give it back! So that proves it was unintended when the your scammed. I had a friends Facebook got hacked I didn't know. So I thought I was talking to her, we thought we were helping a friend help a friend whose dad died. & was selling many items I put a deposit down to hold the items. I got a hold of my friend & found out people had been doing rhis & she had no idea they were still using the Facebook account FB never closed her account.

[tudorguy]

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