I think I've been scammed

HelpPls1
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Hi As the message suggests I've been scammed out of £560. I saw a seller on eBay with items I wanted to buy, I read the description and the seller said to contact him for a buy now price. I contacted him and he asked for my fb messenger so we could talk. We came to an agreement on a price for the items and he said to pay via PayPal. And he said to pay through personal transactions because he needs the money for a holiday starting yesterday. He also said he would post the items when he left for airport at 6-7pm. I messaged him after that time as he promised to send me a tracking number but that didn't come. When I went back to check on messenger, I couldn't see his online status, I thought that meant he blocked me. So I decided to wait. I thought he may have been on a long flight but I was just naive. So now here I am £560 less and I don't know what to do. I'm not even 100 per cent sure I got scammed.
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6 REPLIES 6

snoozyblue
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If you've sent the payment as a Personal payment, there's nothing PayPal can do sadly =/ It does sound quite fishy if he won't talk via eBay. All is not lost though- if you've paid via a card, you can contact your card issuer to initiate a chargeback to pull the money back. Alternatively, you can speak to ActionFraud, a division of the UK police specialising in cyber crime. Hope this helps dude, that's really rough.

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HelpPls1
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Thanks for the reply Would this work for a debit card? I put the money on PayPal then sent it to him.
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snoozyblue
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Should work with a debit card, yeah. If you topped up your PayPal balance first and THEN sent the money, that wouldn't be able to have a chargeback applied. 

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HelpPls1
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So I'm basically **bleep**
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HelpPls1
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Would an option be to wait and see if anything arrives, then file a report through actionfraud or call my bank?
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noir2point1
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I would file with your bank first as they would take it seriously anyway, filing with action fraud is always a good idea as it backs up your case. 

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