I got scammed while buying a GTX 1060 6GB

[Tummy]

Hallo everyone,

 

As you can see i got scammed recently. I thought I was buying a GTX 1060 on marktplaats (The dutch Ebay). But I never recieved anything and I had already paid €30 before I saw he was a scammer. How can I get my money back?

 

Any idea is welcome.

[Lurick]

You learn from your mistakes and move on with life.

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, Tummy said:

-snip-

What method did you pay? Paypal? Credit Card?
You can contact your payment provider and have them cancel/refund the payment.

In future if you see a €300 card being sold for €30 just keep on scrolling. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

[Tummy]

Just now, Spotty said:

What method did you pay? Paypal? Credit Card?
You can contact your payment provider and have them cancel/refund the payment.

In future if you see a €300 card being sold for €30 just keep on scrolling. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It was listed for €160 and I gave the money directly with the IBAN number. Banks don't cancel/refund transactions. But maybe I can call his bank and try it anyways.

[Sumea]

Local police should handle these. At least in Finland people usually can bring these to police, and they can handle it. Nothing screws people over like a good mark on their record, law forcing to return your money, plus the guy probably getting other criminal penalty of some other.

 

It will be slow, for sure, not nearly as satisfying as immediately SWATting the guy or whatever but usually going through the lawful manner is the best.

 

At least I am assuming that in this case you are Dutch yourself, so local police should handle this fine - international scams/mishaps are the real hell to deal with if anything like this or even a honest mistake happens.

[Spotty]

2 minutes ago, Tummy said:

It was listed for €160 and I gave the money directly with the IBAN number. Banks don't cancel/refund transactions.

- I'm unfamilar with the laws and banking processes in your country -
Perhaps try reporting it to the police as a fraud and obtain a police report relating to the bank transfer. Take that to your bank and speak to your bank, providing a copy of the police report for a fraudulent charge, and see if the bank can take steps to reclaim the money for you?
You should definitely go in to your bank and talk to someone about this though. They will know which steps you can/should take to reclaim your money.

[Tummy]

2 hours ago, Sumea said:

Local police should handle these. At least in Finland people usually can bring these to police, and they can handle it. Nothing screws people over like a good mark on their record, law forcing to return your money, plus the guy probably getting other criminal penalty of some other.

 

It will be slow, for sure, not nearly as satisfying as immediately SWATting the guy or whatever but usually going through the lawful manner is the best.

 

At least I am assuming that in this case you are Dutch yourself, so local police should handle this fine - international scams/mishaps are the real hell to deal with if anything like this or even a honest mistake happens.

This would be a very good idea. And I live in het Netherlands yes.

 

Unfortunatly we don't realy have police in the Netherlands nor a swat team. Police just doesn't care if you get scammed or not, its not their problem. And even if they want to help, thay cant, because over here the law inforcement has almost no rights. For example: If a dutch police man sees someone drowning, they cant save him or the police men wil get fired (Yes this is actually true!). You need premission for EVERYTHING and you will never get it. Dutch law inforcement (For as far it exists) can't/isn't allowt to do anything about this even if they wanted.

 

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

- I'm unfamilar with the laws and banking processes in your country -
Perhaps try reporting it to the police as a fraud and obtain a police report relating to the bank transfer. Take that to your bank and speak to your bank, providing a copy of the police report for a fraudulent charge, and see if the bank can take steps to reclaim the money for you?
You should definitely go in to your bank and talk to someone about this though. They will know which steps you can/should take to reclaim your money.

yes, I can ask them what I can do. I will try it. Thanks

[tatte]

7 minutes ago, Tummy said:

Unfortunatly we don't realy have police in the Netherlands nor a swat team. Police just doesn't care if you get scammed or not, its not their problem. And even if they want to help, thay cant, because over here the law inforcement has almost no rights. For example: If a dutch police man sees someone drowning, they cant save him or the police men wil get fired (Yes this is actually true!). You need premission for EVERYTHING and you will never get it. Dutch law inforcement (For as far it exists) can't/isn't allowt to do anything about this even if they wanted.

This sounds awfully a lot like a stereotypical hillbilly beliefs or a childhood spent in the wrong company. Even if what you said was true, you should still report it. There will never be any pressure to handle things like this if official records say things like this never happen.

[tikker]

How long has it been? Did you contact the seller again for a status update? Did you put a payment plan or anything on paper?

In any case, report to Marktplaats and the police.

 

Also, don't wire random people money. You have little to no rights when you do this, since you're effectively just making a donation to them. Request to pay through secure methods such as IDEAL or Paypal (buyers protection). To have more viable proof of purchase.

[Tummy]

1 minute ago, tikker said:

How long has it been? Did you contact the seller again for a status update? Did you put a payment plan or anything on paper?

In any case, report to Marktplaats and the police.

 

Also, don't wire random people money. You have little to no rights when you do this, since you're effectively just making a donation to them. Request to pay through secure methods such as IDEAL or Paypal (buyers protection). To have more viable proof of purchase.

IDEAL is ran by scammers so I will never use that. And I can't use paypal. And i can't get a status update because its a scammer and he blocked me.

[tikker]

7 minutes ago, Tummy said:

IDEAL is ran by scammers so I will never use that. And I can't use paypal. And i can't get a status update because its a scammer and he blocked me.

Still safer than giving people free money. I stronlgy recommend getting a Paypal account for the future then. It's easy and secure, never had any problems with it.

 

Anyway, you didn't answer the other questions. How long it has been is kind of key in declaring it with the police (there is an X days lower limit I believe) and if you had a plan black on white as well.

 

My guess is that those 30 euros are gone if you have no proof except a wire transfer, but I would still report anyway. In the least you'll be helping statistics ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Tummy]

33 minutes ago, tikker said:

Still safer than giving people free money. I stronlgy recommend getting a Paypal account for the future then. It's easy and secure, never had any problems with it.

 

Anyway, you didn't answer the other questions. How long it has been is kind of key in declaring it with the police (there is an X days lower limit I believe) and if you had a plan black on white as well.

 

My guess is that those 30 euros are gone if you have no proof except a wire transfer, but I would still report anyway. In the least you'll be helping statistics ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was about 5 days ago and I have chats op marktplaats and whatsapp.

 

[Arika]

1 hour ago, Tummy said:

Banks don't cancel/refund transactions.

Working in a bank: Yes we do, we do it all the time. Request that they do a "Recall" on the funds, depending on the financial regulators of your country the recall may not be successful if they have already removed the money from the account, but it doesnt hurt to try and likely will not cost you anymore than a phone call or maybe a signature

[Froody129]

Well did you really think you were gonna get one for €30? Anyway, you've taken all solutions suggested and then immediately thrown them off with saying no one wants to help you... 

 

Report it to the bank and the police if €30 is that big of a deal. The bank should be able to reverse payment 

[Tummy]

24 minutes ago, Froody129 said:

Well did you really think you were gonna get one for €30? Anyway, you've taken all solutions suggested and then immediately thrown them off with saying no one wants to help you... 

 

Report it to the bank and the police if €30 is that big of a deal. The bank should be able to reverse payment 

I haven't thrown everyone off. And it was listed for 160 not 30! I had only paid 30 when i saw it was a scam. 

[Cyberspirit]

4 hours ago, Tummy said:

I haven't thrown everyone off. And it was listed for 160 not 30! I had only paid 30 when i saw it was a scam. 

How or why did you pay 30€ if it was listed for 160?

[dizmo]

I'm with @Cyberspirit. This just sounds odd.

Personally, I'm in the camp of "if you got scammed, you probably had it coming."

Either you didn't educate yourself to the dangers, tried to go through with a too-good-to-be-true deal, or didn't protect yourself as you should.

I see you didn't use Paypal, there's the first red flag.

[AshleyAshes]

4 hours ago, Tummy said:

I haven't thrown everyone off. And it was listed for 160 not 30! I had only paid 30 when i saw it was a scam. 

I don't understand... We're you like... Paying in installments or something?

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

I don't understand... We're you like... Paying in installments or something?

Maybe the real story is he's the scammer

'Hey, I'll send you 30 Euro, you send me the card. Then I'll send the rest.'

Card doesn't show up.

'Help, I've been scammed!' *How dare he scam me while I try to scam him.*

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

16 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

How or why did you pay 30€ if it was listed for 160?

Most likely a deposit to secure the card.

 

Even at 160€ it's quite cheap, but no longer in the "suspicious" category.  If the bids on some of the 6GB ones on Ebay are anything to go by, they go for 200+ easily.  160€ is about right for the 3GB version.

 

If filing a formal complaint isn't an option, I'm afraid you're out of luck. 

[Canada EH]

8 hours ago, Tummy said:

GTX 1060

It is a civil matter, take the seller to small claims court

[Cyberspirit]

13 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

Most likely a deposit to secure the card.

Huh, I didn't know that was a thing.

[Teddy07]

20 hours ago, Tummy said:

It was listed for €160 and I gave the money directly with the IBAN number. Banks don't cancel/refund transactions. But maybe I can call his bank and try it anyways.

Pretty simple:

1. Write the seller an email on ebay demanding either the item or your money back. You also inform him that you have his bank account and ebay information. Also, tell him that you will make a criminal complaint to the police department for fraud if he doesn't cooperate. 

2. Do as you said in step 1. if he doesn't cooperate.

 

I am from Germany and use ebay regularly. I had to deal with one scammer in the past but he got scared after I threatened him with the police.

[Teddy07]

12 hours ago, Canada EH said:

It is a civil matter, take the seller to small claims court

It is actually also a criminal case because the seller committed obviously fraud. The buyer also has his bank and ebay information so it should be pretty simple for the police.

The bank account could be of course from a 3rd party that just provided the account for the scammer.ö It should be obvious that the account will be used for criminal activities. That´s why I think it is also a criminal case for the 3rd party person.

[Pyramiden]

Dear TS, the things you state about the Dutch police are bulll-shit, and not based on any facts or laws. What makes you even get the idea that the police is not allowed to save someone from drowning? Of course there are SWAT-units (Arrestatieteam) and normal police officers.
However, usually they are dealing with bigger fishes than people getting scammed on Marktplaats.

Ideal is simply an automated way to transfer money from bank-account to bank-account, and is not run by scammers. The fees are actually pretty low compared to a Paypal or credit card transaction.

So, now we got all of that out of the way we can get back on topic:
Firstly, I encourage you to register to Tweakers.net. It is a big Dutch technology forum and people will be able to help you better there.

Unlike Ebay, Marktplaats does not feature a review system. Therefore you have to be extremely careful when buying something, and always, I repeat always, pick up the items in person.

Since you wired the money using a normal IBAN transaction your money is gone. So what to do now?
1. Learn a lesson from this. Marktplaats is full of scammers, and you have to take extreme caution there (I also learned this the hard way).
2. Realise that the money is gone. You made a mistake, you will not get it back no matter how much effort you put in it.
3. Do send the seller and adition email. If he does not respond:
4. Do "aangifte" at your local police station.
5. Continue with your life.

For the future: You might want to consider "Tweakers Vraag en Antwoord" and Ebay for future IT related purchases. Tweakers features a good review system and Ebay has Paypal buyer protection as an added bonus.

Edit: 160 euro is about 60 euro less than what most second hand GTX 1060's are going for in The Netherlands. If it is too good to be true, it usually is.
As I understand you only lost €30 euro. I realize this can be a lot of money, depending on your income, but it is not that much considering how big the losses could be.