[pramodkumar]

Mods please merge if the topic already exists.

Most of us buy stuff online, I too have bought numerous stuff from Facebook/olx. While buying from Facebook olx we always have a risk of loosing our money or not getting what was described by the seller.

I have a small YouTube channel and Instagram account connected to the channel and a lot of people ask me questions regarding legal options with these scammers, usually it google/phone pay/ PayTM, sometimes account transfers as well. I usually respond to such queries asking the victim to file a police complaint. I used to think that was sufficient until it happened to me.

It was during Covid when a scammer posted some spares, it was a bit cheaper than what was available locally and the amount was small so I decided to pull the trigger. 90% of my my hobbies lead me to olx and Facebook marketplace and I have never been cheated, so the first experience was a difficult one, it was a small amount but I was filled with rage. I finally decided to file a complaint. In Kerala, police has an app and I could raise a complaint. I received a call after a month and the cops called me to the station, they asked me if they can close the case, I asked them about the investigation and they just simply said nothing could be done. I was sore about police not helping, however more sore about not able to do anything to the scammer. It took me ages to recover from this, slowly I started being more diligent and finally I got little bit more careful.

Last week it happened again, this time I paid the money for some spares but it was never shipped. I not sure if police case is the best option, looking for suggestions.

Pramod

[GTO]

I understand your pain, but the police are inundated with such cases and all I can say is "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Too many scammers online and I have seen the cops only give preference to the big ticket scams.

Either buy from a reputable seller, or exchange money & goods in person. If you pay a stranger, only do so if you are mentally prepared to lose it all. I'll take a 1000-buck risk with an unknown person, but not a 10000-rupee one. Heck, even for perfumes, I buy from Shoppers Stop instead of Amazon (because of fakes on Amazon).

[mygodbole]

Short answer: No, nothing can be done.

Longer version: A) UPI-based payment apps are 'volunteer' payments, that is the sender bears all responsibility and has no recourse in case of fraud. That is one of the basic reasons that UPI only allows relatively small amounts to be transferred.

B) Account transfers can be tracked but to recover the money is a lot of headache, and includes, but not limited to, a police complaint stating possible fraud and a separate complaint to your bank asking them to find out where the money went. If the bank wants, and is able to track the payee account holder, the police can politely ask him/her to return the money. If the payee says will not/cannot, neither the police nor the bank can do anything since, again, it the payer who initiates payment and is thus deemed a 'volunteer' transfer of funds.

I am not a lawyer or a financial world expert, but have seen enough of the banking world to know that unless a legally binding agreement is in force, any transfer of funds is considered 'voluntarily performed'.

An old phrase comes to mind, no offence intended: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Drive safe.

[Bhargav7]

Originally Posted by pramodkumar

Last week it happened again, this time I paid the money for some spares but it was never shipped. I not sure if police case is the best option, looking for suggestions.

No no no. You don't pay cash first. FB marketplace is where I buy most of the cricket match tickets - It is the accepted practice that you meet in person and exchange goods/tickets with cash.

There is absolutely nothing that the police can do. The account to which you transferred money was mostly opened with a fake KYC of a daily wager or an innocent farmer.

And if the deal is too good to be true, walk away. Sorry to say this, but you got scammed twice?

[anjan_c2007]

Firstly, I would request everyone to totally refrain from making payments, based on advertised goods or services on FB marketplace, OLX and other such not so trustworthy platforms. A lot of complaints have been surfacing lately. Yes, only after a face to face deal with the vendor, if found OK the payment can be made.

You have not stated the amount. But from the OP it appears that the amount could be something in five figures. If it's not a huge amount please forget it.

For a large sum if involved, you can first approach the Superintendent of Police (SP) under whose jurisdiction the police station falls. Tell him about the matter with a written complaint plus annexures stating all details and get your personal copy signed as received by the SP's office.

And if you do not get a positive response from the SP, you can go ahead by filing a case through a lawyer in the competent District Court, again only if the amount in question is huge. The Magistrate has powers under the Criminal Procedure Code to direct the police for registration of a FIR and to carry out investigations. The court can monitor such investigations.

[Ashwintona675]

Originally Posted by GTO

I understand your pain, but the police are inundated with such cases and all I can say is "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Too many scammers online and I have seen the cops only give preference to the big ticket scams.

I echo GTO’s points. Infact the cops are helpless even in cases of big ticket scams. My close friend lost 1.7L (They used credit card details and 1.7L was his limit) where the scammer posed as a classmate in whatsapp. He ended up paying the credit card bill and all the cops had to say was ‘You are educated, yet you got fooled. I dont know what education you got’. Infact they called him later to the cyber security branch and made him withdraw the case saying they will harass him by calling him everyday to the branch. Such is the plight of law enforcement. I would suggest take it as a lesson and move on.

[d.w.w.]

The best option is to forget your money and stay away from making such mistakes in the future. A police complaint will not get you anywhere. There should be more than enough complaints for them to handle and since this is for a small amount (thousands v/s lakhs) it wont gain attention.

Recently I read a report which explained things from the police perspective. In cases where these scammers/sellers get caught, they do an out of court settlement with the individual and now the cops are left without a case. All their hard work in catching the culprits are wasted. Due to such experiences cops are not enthusiastic in solving such cases.

There are heavily moderated FB selling groups which you can stick to for such purchases if necessary. The sellers who do fraud here are immediately removed and the whole thing is made public here to warn other potential buyers. Even in such cases start with small ticket purchases before spending a large sum.

[srini1785]

I'm pretty sure that OLX has a COD (cash on delivery) option. I sometimes sell certain items in OLX and most customers insist on the COD option and I'm happy to oblige. I'm not sure of Facebook market place though.

[hemant.kamat]

Originally Posted by pramodkumar

I not sure if police case is the best option, looking for suggestions.

Originally Posted by mygodbole

UPI-based payment apps are 'volunteer' payments, that is the sender bears all responsibility and has no recourse in case of fraud. That is one of the basic reasons that UPI only allows relatively small amounts to be transferred.

You could file a complaint with your cybercrime cell. There's a thread on DesiDime about how a lady from Jhansi mistakenly transferred ₹36K into the OP's account and then filed multiple complaints with OP's bank, Jhansi & Mumbai cybercrime cells, resulting in 3 separate liens of ₹36K on the OP's account. He's still running from pillar to post in getting them revoked.

[raptor_diwan]

The police will not take any action unless it involves an MP or MLA or any higher officers. So, if you don't have any connections with these individuals, there is no way such scam-related cases will be handled by them.

There are a few loopholes, but I'm not sure if I can openly share them on the forum. Contacting lawyers can be helpful. Here's a slight hint: report a case as blackmail or money extortion, mentioning contact happened via Telegram. There is a separate team that handles such cases and traces back, but depends on how far you're willing to go and the amount of money involved.

[MadrasTurbo]

First, not many legal options to recover your money unless it's a really big sum.

I would like to paste my answer from a reddit thread on this topic below:

Very common type of scam and I'm sorry that you got baited. But it is not entirely your fault as however cautious you are, buying from sellers on platforms like these is always a gamble and it is indeed fully based on trust.

These kinds of scams are not just in India, but all over the world.

I've been shopping on these platforms for a long long time now and this is how I look at it:

1. Buy from local sellers. Even if the seller is not from your own city be prepared to travel +50km if the deal is good enough.

2. If the seller is from another city, even if you cannot go in person, ask for a video call and see if they show their face (also the product of course) and talk like you are going to visit in person and ask for an address and when you can meet them in the coming weeks. Most scammers will back out here.

3. If they really give you an address to come and look at the product in person and if it's really a deal to go out of the way for, or a product you just cannot buy elsewhere, check for nearby shops (small ones like mobile shops, fancy stores) around this given address on Google and call and ask them if they are okay with someone dropping a product at their shop and if they can ship it to you for say, ₹500.

4. From experience, no genuine seller would agree for 50% advance and 50% after delivery. They always want 100% up front.

5. Even with all these precautions, you should always be prepared to lose the money that you send. Never send more than ₹5k. Any product above this value is not worth risking. I've a higher threshold, but till you are confident that you can identify scammers, ₹5k is a good limit.

If it makes you feel any better in the last 7-8 years, before learning how these people operate, I've lost money twice to scammers. But, overall, I've saved more than I've lost.

Finally, things like these happen, but life goes on. It's a pricey but valuable lesson. I keep telling myself, If a deal is too good to be true, it likely is.

[arjunsatheesh]

Better to forget about it OP. Just make sure to meet in person at a public place next time and do your business.
About the Kerala Police App, even though it's very easy to file a case using it, the response from the Police is useless. All they care about is about closing the case. Even a hit-and-run I filed was closed after they lied to me about the case details.

[Rocketscience]

Originally Posted by GTO

I understand your pain, but the police are inundated with such cases and all I can say is "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Too many scammers online and I have seen the cops only give preference to the big ticket scams.

Either buy from a reputable seller, or exchange money & goods in person. If you pay a stranger, only do so if you are mentally prepared to lose it all. I'll take a 1000-buck risk with an unknown person, but not a 10000-rupee one. Heck, even for perfumes, I buy from Shoppers Stop instead of Amazon (because of fakes on Amazon).

My go to place has been Amazon for most items, even the big ticket ones like TVs, mobile phones, laptop etc and my reasoning has been simple, the prices are mostly unmatched offline, it gets delivered mostly the next day on my door step and if there is even a minor issue with the item in those 7 days, they replace it which is an uphill battle with offline retailers. Case in point, I replaced my brand new TV from Amazon because it had some backlight non uniformity during darker colours and display appeared to be un-sticking itself from the front panel at one point, these were trivial issues and not noticeable in 90% of the use or by any of my family members but bothered me greatly, Amazon replaced the entire thing without much hassle!
Secondly for anything (from TVs to imported dog food) , I used to buy from the biggest sellers on Amazon like Appario Retail etc which were owned by Amazon or some major corporations and formed with 100s of crores of investment and my reasoning was I could blindly trust them to provide me with genuine products more than most smaller offline shops!

Lately though these 2 reasons have shaked my confidence on Amazon

1- The TV replacement story cannot repeat itself because on most high ticket items, they have started service center replacement instead of hassle free replacement from their end! This is a major policy change and in my books, destroyed one of their biggest USPs for expensive items.
No wonder I would start going to Croma and others to shop for these things and try to negotiate Amazon's prices from them instead.

2- The strong disregard to stop duplicate items from selling on their platform that a layman will for sure fall in their trap, for they give prominent placement, and misguiding information for fake products that even 2 of my extended family members fell in for this exact scam for Apple's 20w charger for their iPhones. (Refer to the attached screenshot)
The charger on the top is original and just next to them is a complete knock off being sold without shame and with Amazon Prime 1 day delivery no less and Apple Charger original written right next to it!
Is it even legal? For this is a knockoff charger of dubious origins being sold for massive profit (you can find knockoff chargers like these for less than 300 rupees in Karol Bagh) and can potentially at the very least destroy your battery health or fry your expensive phone's electronics or worse, start a fire!

[Abhi99]

To answer your question - if you paid via facebook - you may reach out to them to see if they would reimburse. I had an unpleasant experience back in may - when I got scammed.

I had been looking for a saddlemen seat for my motorcycle and aw one listed for sale ( not on marketplace but in one of the FB groups) t very low price. I did the quick check on seller profile and saw lot of genuine looking pictures of someone with his motorcycle , from different rides he seemed to have done. I missed to note that the profile was created only 6 months back. I reached out to this individual and he offered a very low rate. Having missed couple of good deals earlier, I jumped on it and transferred the money. Seller requested to mark it as friends and family on paypal (and I obliged :| -- dont ask why, I am generally very careful). Woof .. money was gone and I never heard from seller again.

I contacted FB - and got told that they are not responsible for any exchange done outside marketplace. I complained against the fraud group - but they hardly bothered to take any action around it.

Lesson learnt - try and meet seller in person, check the product and complete transaction. If transacting online - always do it via paypal (and not mark as friends and family).

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by MadrasTurbo

2. If the seller is from another city, even if you cannot go in person, ask for a video call and see if they show their face (also the product of course) and talk like you are going to visit in person and ask for an address and when you can meet them in the coming weeks. Most scammers will back out here.

Finally, things like these happen, but life goes on. It's a pricey but valuable lesson. I keep telling myself, If a deal is too good to be true, it likely is.

So I was in a similar situation recently and despite my friends suggestion of going slow, in the fear of loosing the item, I pulled the trigger and got cheated.

In my defence what I was buying was so niche (Thrustmaster TGT2 Steering wheel), that I assumed the seller knowing about such a product, would be genuine. He also said that he will send a bill with his GST number which I can verify. Later it turns out he was using some shops GST and those shop people did not know this guy.

I agree, if a deal is too good, be extra cautious. Take any number of steps necessary to ensure you can verify the seller.

Regards
Rachit