I'm so sorry. My husband is a super nice, optimistic guy (I'm the cynical lawyer -- it all works out). But being how he is, every now and them he'll show me this "great deal" he's just found on Craigslist. They call them scam "artists" for a reason. They know how to walk that line between "great seal" and ridiculous.

The new November issue of Consumer Reports has a long cover story on elder scams. Don't let the "elder" part keep you from reading this article, because it's all about types of scams and how they are run. Report this right away to the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, http://www.stopfraud.gov/report.html

The scammers are just getting more and more savvy. Everything we do is on the computer. This is a lesson for all of us to keep alert.

Don't be so hard on yourself as this was a very sophisticated scam with what appeared to be legitimate sites.

Today just looking at my email, I see one from a coworker that looks like it is suspicious. I will email her later to see if she did indeed send this particular email. My computer was hacked so I am on the alert for this particular issue.

So, so, sorry. My 90-yr-old parents were almost the victims of the "grandparent scam" just recently. Fortunately, I happened to be there and my dad uses the speaker phone, so I could hear what was going on and took over the call. Those scammers are absolute scum.

I really don't understand how anyone could say you "willingly" purchased those cards from PayPal. If you were sold a house by a person who did not own it, that would be fraud. The people who sold you those cards perpetrated fraud!

Definitely file a police report. Can't you use the amount you were defrauded as a tax deduction at least?

Honest people should not feel embarrassed because they were exploited and mistreated by abusive people. You're certainly not alone in getting duped and screwed by some sociopath who has found the only skill he has, and only contribution he can make to the world is nefarious, anti-social, criminal sleaze. But you can bet that person isn't embarrassed or ashamed.

Pat yourself on the back, in fact, that you don't resort to that kind of thing and in fact, the reason this happened to you is because you don't have anything to be ashamed of: you are an honest person who would never do such a thing to another person.

I got scammed to on a car deal. I had to sell my old Corolla, wanted to do a private sale (because the dealers also stick it to you in trade-in value), had two buyers (CL), but it turns out, they were working in tandem. The set you up for a showing the car @ the same time, but one doesn't show up, so there is not bidding and they know you have to sell the car, have no other buyers, so they lowball you.

Then they go to church and genuflect.

There are so many people out there who view other people as targets. I refuse to let them make me feel like a fool (easier said than done, huh?). They own the fact that they're dirt balls, not me.

Money is renewable. Lack of a conscience is not. Your son has a much better shot than those scumbags.

I would not give up. Go back to ebay, Discover, paypal. Be persistent. What about the local branch of your sons bank? Go to the bank manager and ask for help. Tell them (ebay, etc. )you are going on social media then do it. Does your local tv station have a customer advocate? If so they would be a great resource to call ebay, discover, paypal on your behalf. Post on their fb pages if they have them. File a police report. I think these scammers bank on the fact you will be embarrassed and not go public. File a report with the BBB. Call your state attorney general.

I am so sorry this happened to you. I would add carsforsale.com to the list of entities you should complain to and report about to the police, BBB, etc.

Edited to add: I also think that Ebay and Paypal would be concerned that someone was using their name to perpetrate fraud.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Help/general/TopQuestion4-outside

http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/lawEnforcementReporting.html

Another edit and add: At some point someone has to use the PIN numbers to get actual cash from the cards. Can't paypal flag the numbers or use the numbers to identify where the money went?

Oh wow. What a sickening feeling to have been taken advantage of like that. I suppose most online transactions require a certain leap of faith, trusting that the seller (or buyer) is legit. I do hope you get some sort of satisfaction from pursuing the seller.

I am so, so sorry that this happened to you and I want you to know it's absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. I would imagine that many of us here have been, or know of someone close to us who has been, the victim of a scammer at some point. It's unfortunate that this leaves US feeling stupid and naïve, when all of the shame should be heaped solely on the heads of those who perpetuate these thieving schemes.

DH and I were led into a Ponzi scheme a number of years back and lost a substantial amount of money. I know exactly how it feels to be duped. (((((Hugs)))))

Boy I really wish I could help you but I'm just not familiar with all the rules governing these types of transactions.

I did find a page that may help you start - it deals with EBay's buyer protection program. Might be worth a read: http://pages.motors.ebay.com/buy/purchase-protection/

End the end, however, I think what you were tricked into doing unfortunately is what these services call "conducting the transaction outside of Ebay/Paypal." For example, when someone lists a gadget on Ebay, but then tells the bidder, "I'll cancel the auction and sell the item to you for XXX dollars, that way we will both save money not having to pay EBay's share of the deal," it sounds tempting b/c we all like to save money, but then you lose all of the protections that Ebay affords. If you did, however, complete the transaction through Ebay, i.e., you pressed the "pay now" button, completed all the steps, etc. and just VERIFIED to the seller that you had the funds, I THINK you should be covered. I would sure as heck raise a stink about it.

Please give me a little more details about exactly how you completed the transaction and I'll see if i can dig up more info for you.

I would definitely report the seller - to the police and the site that sushi pup shows above. At least you telling your story to others will (hopefully) prevent someone else falling victim to a scam. So sorry you are dealing with this.

Thank you all for all your responses. The consensus seems to be to not be embarrassed, that it happens to lots of people and to report it to local police. But we ARE embarrassed. I'm sorry, that may be shallow. None of us got any sleep last night and my son was too tired and sick to go to school today. He couldn't face his peers so he is sleeping as I type this. The amount was $3,000. Not a lot to some people, but a lot to us and everything to my son. I have contacted carsforsale.com and they wanted more info so I sent it to them. I think I will continue to pursue and threaten an attorney. I can file a local police report and contact my states attorney but I really think it will be a waste. From what I have read on this, this person could very well be in another country. Someone should be responsible though, besides just us. Ebay and carsforsale.com were totally misrepresented. It truly looked all so legit. I am following up with Discover too. I'm hoping under their purchase protection guarantee, that we can be refunded. I have always felt so safe with Discover card because they have protected us in the past with charges we did not make. The customer service was always excellent. I will read the links that were posted here, just wanted to offer my thanks for responses. We feel like such idiots. We are college graduates! and we didn't protect our son like we should have :(

Totally understand that feeling of humiliation as I was scammed if $$$s by pool builder. After I got over the embarrassment of being scammed we reported to BBB, went on TV to expose him and sued. Won't get a cent but for 10 yrs he won't be able to do biz in 3 major counties in TX. Steve Kendrick disappeared with my pool Reno $. Don't buy so much as a pencil from this b@st@rd. Hangs around major cities in TX, MO and CO. All these actions helped me heal heavily bruised self esteem. Recommend you do all you can to expose scammers, it will help you and others in long run.

still don't understand how scam worked and interested since I do eBay.

Sorry for your experience but unfortunately you've joined a club of smart but unsuspecting. Welcome (sad grin)

That is so sad and I feel so sorry for your son. I understand for a young lad buying his first car and he must have been so excited and it is a lot of money. I had two sons who went through it but fortunately (and thanks to BCAA or AAA) came out ok.

I just hope that your son doesn't lose his trust in people.

jlj, please forgive my ignorance, but for edification's sake, what exactly is the scam? Did the fake Paypal site use numbers on the Paypal cash card photos to cash them or something? I don't use these kinds of transactions, so I don't know exactly what's going on here. I figure there are others who need to be alerted too (hoping I'm not the only clueless one here). Thanks -- I feel a little dumb for having to ask!

I'm so sorry your son is hurting over this. And it's hard for you too, because it's so painful to see your precious son -- nice, decent, innocent -- get ripped off by evil people. Hugs & prayers for you & your family.

I'm confused about how they gained access to the money. Don't the cash cards have a PIN number that is needed to access the funds?

what a sad story :( but, probably a very good learning experience for your son.

I think the problem with discover is that you bought ligit pay pal cards and then were scammed... it was like you were handing over your cash to scammers, which they have no control over... hopefully the cars for sale website can be helpful, but I wouldn't count on it. scammers can be very smart...but, hopefully this one wasn't!!

I am already very wary/cynical of online sites, calls ,etc and every time I hear a story like this, it reinforces my cynicism.

PLEASE contact the federal site I posted above. They are tracking crooks just like this, and they need your input. They can do more than your local police can.

What's just as sad is what happened to my niece :

Wired money through CraigsList to get a puppy....

Nothing sadder than seeing her sitting on the front porch waiting for her puppy :(

I never knew there were such things as Paypal cash cards.

I heard a story today on the Today Show about how much information can be pulled off an airplane boarding pass. And scammers can do it from a photograph you post of your boarding pass on Facebook, etc.

The way I understand it, PayPal cash cards are for people who don't have a credit card. You can purchase them and then use them to put cash in your PayPal account. I don't understand the need for them if one already has a Discover card.

What I would do in your situation, honestly, is try to get as much publicity about this as possible- and I would start a Go Fund Me. Stuff like this goes viral, and I think that if you publicize this, you could easily get enough small donations from people to get your son his money back so he can get his car. Then, the story and lesson becomes that good overcomes evil. Nothing at all to be embarrassed about on your part!

Here is an easy way to avoid a LOT of scams.... never ever ever wire money or purchase any sort of cash cards to send to someone you do not know. Period. And pictures of the card numbers/codes (or given over the phone) are as good as giving the crook the card.

I'm also curious about how this particular scam works, awm03. Normally, you'd buy PayPal cash cards to fund your child's PayPal account. This way, your credit card or bank info isn't linked to the kid's account, but he would still be protected by PayPal's purchase policy. It sounds to me like the scammer convinced them to send the cash card info directly to him, rather than loading it into the son's account?

jelly, I assume the scammers requested the cash cards as payment. If the scammers pretended to be a normal private party then there would be no reason to expect them to accept a credit card as payment.

Did you report the cash cards are "stolen" to PayPal? That might be a better route.

If you have any questions regarding
PayPal My Cash Card, or need to report a lost or stolen My Cash Card, please call Customer Service at:

1-855-721-5035

or write to:
PayPal My Cash Card Customer Service
PO Box 832 Fortson, GA 31808

"I assume the scammers requested the cash cards as payment. If the scammers pretended to be a normal private party then there would be no reason to expect them to accept a credit card as payment."

I'm trying to understand how this scam works. The PayPal cash cards are used to fund a PayPal account ... normally your own. If you give the cards away without funding your PayPal account, or if you give someone the pin numbers, that is like giving away cash. Is the reason the scam works because people don't understand how the cards work?

" ... I would start a Go Fund Me. Stuff like this goes viral, and I think that if you publicize this, you could easily get enough small donations from people to get your son his money back so he can get his car."

People actually do this? Give money to random people online simply because they ask for it? If that's true, GoFundMe sounds like a scammers paradise!

People use GoFundMe all the time. Usually, people link to a local interest news story about what happened, or share the link on their social media pages so people in their extended communities help out. More than $1 billion has been raised on Go Fund Me for different causes.

Sadly, many of those causes are scams. I will not donate to people through GFM unless I know them personally.

From PayPal's My Cash site ... first item on Frequently Asked Questions ...

The PayPal My Cash chit is for self-use only - only use it to load funds to your own PayPal Account. If anyone asks for your My Cash Card PIN number or information from your receipt, it's probably a scam. Don't give your My Cash Card PIN number to pay for something you buy through the classifieds or to collect a prize or sweepstakes. Do not give away your PIN or receipt information to any other party. If you give away your My Cash Card PIN number or information about the purchase transaction, the provider is not responsible for paying you back for any loss. The funds are not insured against loss.

Since we are talking fraud if you buy gifts cards for anything, be very careful are look at the back of the card you are purchasing. If anything looks amiss, grab a card from further back in the stack. My son received a Walmart card that a scammer printed the bar code off their card and tucked in the packaging so she. The Walmart store clerk put the gift $ on the card, it went to the fake card instead. Walmart takes no responsibility for the loss

Wow, that's pretty slick, Kippy!

I think GoFundMe is a great concept, but I'm not sure buying a healthy teenager a car is the type of thing it was originally intended for. (It certainly has been used/abused for some absurd things like concert tickets, vacations and the like.) However, it was conceptualized to be a place for people who had legitimately fallen on hard times to get help through lots of small donations. Unexpected hospital bills, funeral expenses, etc. I am appalled at what happened to your son, but I would never let my child solicit donations for a new car. Just my opinion.

Her child got scammed out of his life savings, presumably after working hard to save the money for a car. That's why I suggested that as a possibility. I would not suggest it, obviously, for someone who just wanted others to buy him a car.

Yes, I understand precisely what happened. I still would not let my child beg for donations for a car under those circumstances. If my daughter saves up for a new pair of jeans and they get ripped the first time she wears them, does she get a gofundme? Bad things happen. In the past, hard as it might be, they taught us lessons for the future and did not entitle us to hold a can at the street corner.

"More than $1 billion has been raised on Go Fund Me for different causes."

I had to go to the GoFundMe site to see what it was about. How is that different than standing on a street corner holding a sign asking for money, except that you can sit on your couch instead?

To the OP, I am sorry this has happened. Thank you for sharing, because your story will be used as a teaching guide to some people in my life.

ML

"How is that different than standing on a street corner holding a sign
asking for money, except that you can sit on your couch instead?" Would you be proud to beg either way?

Huh?

Edit: Sorry, AtomicJay007, I didn't see your comment about the "can at the street corner" right above mine. To answer your question, no I would not be proud to beg either way. I find the whole concept of GoFundMe appalling. When did it become acceptable to go online and beg for money from strangers, or, as if that's any better, from friends and acquaintences?

i agree... no way would I suggest to my child to go the go fund me route!!

Ok. Just a suggestion. I didn't mean to derail the thread. I have never used go fund me but it seemed like people use it for situations like this where they have bad luck and people want to chip in as a nice gesture. I retract my suggestion. Just seemed like it would be a possible way to help

lukiirish - It truly is disturbing. I think the reason prosecutions fail (read: don't happen at all) in these scams is because the people are beyond the reach of U.S. jurisdiction. Technology is such that these people can set up (or more likely clone) U.S. telephone numbers, email addresses, etc., so people believe they are speaking to someone in the United States, but they are actually speaking to someone 5000 miles away, where the costs and logistics of bringing them to the US for prosecution are prohibitive. The crooks know there is zero risk of prosecution, which is why they are so bold.

I wanted to state more clearly what I alluded to in an earlier post: It is IMPERATIVE that you learn how to conduct legitimate transactions over the internet before you buy or fall victim to a scam. In my experience, eBay and credit card companies are generous with their protection policies, but you have to conduct the transaction within the company's terms of service, in order to receive the protections. For eBay, that means setting up your account, enrolling your method of payment with PayPal, conducting the transaction ENTIRELY within eBay's borders, and knowing the timeline and process for filing a claim should something go wrong. You cannot conduct any portion of the transaction outside of eBay's domain (PayPal is a part of eBay). If you follow these rules you WILL be protected if the worst should happen.

Finally, do some research on who you're buying from before you contact them or place a bid. You want to look for a seller who has a lengthy history on eBay and a perfect customer satisfaction score. I personally will not bid on anything unless the seller has been on eBay for 2+ years and has a 100% feedback rating. Keep an eye out, too, for sellers who have only been on eBay for a short time but have dozens of excellent feedback in that short period of time. That is a tell-tell sign that the feedback is manufactured to set up the confidence game.

I know this is of little use to the OP, but I hope it helps someone else avoid being taken advantage of in the future.

The Federal site I posted is the ONLY way you might possibly see the scammers tracked down. He isnt local, and the police don't care. But yes, there is a national way to report scammers and have them tracked.

Don't beat yourself up! I hope that somehow there will be a restorative solution for your son. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

I woke up to discover fraudulent charges in our checking account this morning. We've had cards duplicated, hacked online, and stolen by a fair merchant. The scammers are just relentless.

I'm sorry this happened. PayPal is no longer an eBay company. And if the eBay page was a fake, they shouldn't be responsible.

We have a car to sell because I just purchased a new-to-me car from a dealer out of state. I dread the process of selling it and will most likely list on Auto Trader, which has a long standing good reputation. I've been on eBay for more than ten years with a 100% rating, but I still don't think I wast to do anything that isn't in person, even though I just bought an expensive car sight unseen...go figure...

Scammers are successful because we don't listen to our gut on the internet like we do in person. My mom started to go down that road selling a bike, but I jumped in and stopped her. These are my basic rules.

If the other party asks you to do anything that is out of the scope of the rules/contrary to your request/something that will net you more money than the price of the transaction, STOP COMMUNICATING WITH THEM.

If the other party can't CLEARLY communicate in PERFECT English, STOP COMMUNICATING WITH THEM.

If the other party claims to be local, but will not call you when requested, STOP COMMUNICATING WITH THEM.

Buy/sell/transact locally, in cash and bring a counterfeit pen for larger bills.

This is a painful lesson for your son, but his generation will continue to do more and more via the web. He needs to have his guard up at all times-to protect his privacy, reputation and money.

Thanks Atomic, no help to the OP as well but this is why I no longer use Ebay or Paypal. It's not fun anymore or worth the risk.

To the OP, this is a tough lesson for your son and I'm sorry he's having to go through it. There is no reason to be embarrassed, new tricks are in the works all the time, how could you know? I think it's something we all go through at one point or another. Heck, when I was 13, I worked all summer to save for a new bike. I bought the sleekest (ha ha) yellow ten speed bike I could find and was so proud of it and myself. I hadn't owned it more than a week when someone decided to snatch it from where it was parked in front of our house not 20 feet from the front door. I wasn't being careless, I just needed to use the restroom and this was a good middle class neighborhood. It was a time when people left their doors unlocked and felt safe. We never did find it and I had to wait until the next summer so I could do it all over again and buy another.

I don't have a pay pal acct. any more. I knew two people whose accounts were hacked and when my email attached to my account t was hacked, scammers sent out phishing letters to my contacts pretending to be from PayPal I decided to close the account. I'm not sure if it was my email or PayPal that was hacked so why take a chance? I did like buying on eBay but I think I'll just give it a rest for now. I had a separate credit card and bank account for PayPal and closed them too. Thieves are good at pretending to be PayPal and have fooled so many people. I like some of the merchants on eBay and was a long time customer but right now I don't want to have to worry that my acct. wasn't safe. So many moved on when ebay raised their fees and new policies pushed out the small sellers. I think you can never be sure your account is safe anymore. Scammers are always working on trying to deceive us.

Sorry that happened to you. I know how ill and aggravated I felt thinking that my acct. was possibly hacked and I can't imagine how you feel but you arent to blame for trying to help your son.