Bitcoin Forum

I paid 2btc  for a car online to another person, he had good pics and everything but it is 3weeks late on delivery and he stopped responding to me. I can't find the right number of email to contact bitcoin company for a refund, can someone point me in the right direction. I couldn't find anything on bitcoin.com for refunds.

Bitcoin transaction aren't reversible. Sorry buddy, you have been scammed. Anybody can get a good pics of any car of their choice from the web and claim they have those cars in their possession. Next time don't make a business deal just because you see good pics of the goods you intend buying. As far the "suppose seller" have disconnected all communication with you. It's a scam therefore getting a refund won't be possible and bitcoin can't be refunded unless the receiver is willing to partake in that process

Although out of curiosity, when you say online what do you mean, social media or website, what's the name? also can you drop the transaction ID to the paid btc maybe the address can be traced (not guaranteed though)

Hi, there is not a way to refund these after they have been sent unless it is before it is confirmed, your best bet is to find the person that did this and after that bill him or sue him, there are a lot of factors in this matter, for example, if you are American you would have a very strong case.

you can often trace bitcoin addresses to their owners.

Cheers

Bitcoin is not a company. Bitcoin.com is.

Unlike PayPal and other payment methods, bitcoin is irreversible, contacting the wallet provider you used won't help you sadly as your coins are probably sent elsewhere already.

I'm not sure about the details and where you got scammed, but maybe you could make a thread in the scam accusation section to make people aware of the service/person who scammed you.

Do you know the guy you deal with personally? if you didn't know him personally, you shouldn't paid him in advance when you haven't done any traditional agreement and no signing of papers for that TX. How did you contacted him before? you mean to say that he just asked you to pay him through bitcoin and you sent him quickly? as mentioned, bitcoin transactions can't be undone.

If he stopped responding to you then chances are that you got scammed. The car was probably not there. Bitcoin transactions being irreversible and unregulated so far, this makes it so much targeted by scammers since it's hard to trace them and bring them to the books.

Sorry but i think chances of you recovering your money are very slim.

Bitcoin transaction can not be reversed and I will suggest you to contact the local authorities about it. (Do not tell me now that you never saw the car in real, never met the person and still transferred 2 btc on promise of future delivery.)

This thread shows why bitcoin is far away from being a payment option for the masses. People compare it to standard bank transfers and want to have support if anything unexpectedly happens. This is something Bitcoin wont have in the near future, but desperatly needed if we really want, that every non-tech savy guy can use it.

@OP ... I am very sorry that you got scamed and lost your coins. Next time you may use an escrow service which is a third person or company ensuring that the car really exists and the seller really gets his coins.

Darn, that guy had an instant money like with just some sales talk and few effort he has now sitting on his 2btc.
This is literally 'lesson learned in the hard and expensive way".

Nothing on online world is surreal and not everyone that you met can be trusted so if you sense that something isn't right better to get your ass off before it's too late.

This is the feature that Bitcoin borrowed from paper money. If you gave your cash to someone and this seller disappeared then it would be pretty hard for you to find him. At least your transaction would not be traced. The same thing is happening with BTC. Now we got reversible online money like PayPal and irreversible like Bitcoin.

Not many places we can buy car using bitcoins so how did you trusted someone who you found online.As everyone saying you got scammed and 2 bitcoin is very huge amount with the current price you might asked before sending those bitcoin for some suggestion. :-[

I can’t understand why you took such a high risk there, having no assurance that the car was actually going to be delivered. I guess that the price deal seemed too good to be true (plus off the books), and that blurred your better judgment.

There’s not much you can do here, but try to exploit the contact information you may have used at some point with the alleged seller. Likely that is just a set of burner contact information, and won’t get you too far either, but since BTC TXs are non-reversable, there is not much you can do really.

With BTC, you are your own bank, and that entails that you do not have some of the perks (nor hassles) related to conventional payment methods, and additional responsability now lies on your shoulders.

Wow, it doesn't sounds good. Bitcoin transactions isn't reversible, so you're in big problem. You simply risked way too much. You sent BTC first without using escrow and without seing seller and his car. But if you have at least some details about seller, not everything is lost. Maybe you know name of seller, his phone number or city where he lives. Maybe you know registration number of car? I suggest you to go to local police station with all information that you have. There is not much what else you can do now...

The main thing is that he probably felt safe because he thought he could get a refund issue like how you can with paypal and credit cards.  This is likely the #1 reason do not like to use bitcoin and why scammers love it.  Once its in the scammer's possession it will not be retrieved.

He still only lost about 10k, that is child play for these internet scammers.  Some of these guys are pulling in millions off a single person.

Sounds like you got scammed. Sadly its big amount, 2 BTC is serious money. Little bit too much for a lesson about escrow and securely handling your money.
Study this topics anyway, im sorry for your loss and in future be more careful.

Why are you so confident on sending BTC to buy car online? refund is impossible if a person already scammed you.

It's necessary that you know whom you are transacting to, in the information you provided it looks like you got scammed, it's better to transact in a certain company where you know where to find them so in case they cannot delivery the item, you can ask for a refund.

The problem here is not with Bitcoin, but with the OP. How does someone buy a car like that? Even if he had used another method that could be reversed, what OP did would be extremely risky. If you had transferred money into the seller's account, sent money in the mail or even used the card. The problem is not the method, but the lack of research on who would be selling the car for you.

Unfortunately bitcoin transactions are a one way street, and the only way possible for a refund is if the seller comes by and chooses to refund.

BTW are there no T&Cs that could protect you from that marketplace you bought your car ? If nothing comes through then For now hang in there and hope your car is delivered soon

I don't understand why people buy car via online?
and by the explanation above, it wasn't thru regulated marketplace
for a physical item that big and expensive,
I think it's best for both buyer and sell to meet face to face to complete the deal

there is no such thing as bitcoin company to request a refund, bitcoin.com is a bitcoin wallet service provider
bitcoin.com can't help you get refund because bitcoin payment transaction is irreversible

Sorry for your loss, but its clear to me you have lack of knowledge about bitcoin or other crypto-currency. Bitcoin isn't operated by any company or organisations. So there is no any way to claim. Bitcoin is a virtual currency and its decentralized. Bitcoin is not reversible currency like PayPal. That's why you should learn proper knowledge before use anything especially on online world. You should send your bitcoin to an unknown person with out use third party escrow.

Bro, you bought a car online using bitcoin (2 BTC which is $10k+) ?
I can tell you like the others to forget the refund, unless you track down the person that received the funds and force him to send back the 2 Bitcoins, you're not gonna see those funds again, sorry for your loss.
Also kudos for your patience, 3 weeks waiting for the delivery !

Unfortunately there is no such thing as a "refund" option when it comes to Bitcoin. I hate to kick a man when they are down, but this is really simple stuff - you should not have handed over a single penny to a random stranger on the internet without securing the car & registration first. Anybody can take photos of a car and pretend they are the owner, then pull a scam like this.

Your btc wouldn't be refunded unless you found the person you transact with. It's impossible to reverse the transaction unlike what you can do with banks and money transfer services. The most possible way get this scammer is perhaps to report it to FBI and look for this person's location; if your evidence of being scammed by this person is enough then they'll take an action for your case.

Bitcoin isn't a bank. You can't call up a number or institution and say 'hey that guy didn't give me what I purchased so I want you to reimburse me and cancel his payment'. The onus is completely on you.

If you want something that has a reimburse centralized function, sell something through ebay instead (and deal with their 10 percent transaction fee).

If I were to use an analogy, think of it like sending an email. Once you click send and the other person receives your message, you can't 'undo' the email - it is there in their inbox and that's that.

I'm sorry you got scammed, but hopefully if you have more details of this person you can locate him yourself and try and get your money back directly.

This is crazy! It was common to send btc to stranger years ago when it was worth "nothing" but now you should be crazy to pay that amount to someone you don't know and without even know how bitcoin works.

People still send thousands via paypal and bank transfers to internet scammers.  I wouldn't go around blaming the vitcims, its usually the good hearted people that are too trusting.  I hope this scammer gets what is coming to him in the end.

Why did you pay with cryptocurrency? You wanted to remain incognito? At the same time you did not even see the goods with your own eyes! It is impossible to give money without registration of the contract. Even if it were dollars, you wouldn't get a refund if they didn't find the crook. I'm sorry! From now on, be careful when choosing a seller. Require a personal meeting before making a deal!

I’m rather inclined to considering this story made up. The OP has not been around since he posted his single post 12 days ago, and although the story seems rather naïve to start with, one would expect the OP to comeback to this thread and interact a bit if his claim was real.

Maybe he is just trying to digest his situation. Either way, I'm sure we'd both agree someone somewhere in the world has probably purchased a car/tv/something expensive with crypto only to have no recourse when something goes wrong like no receipt of goods.

Solid trusted crypto escrow services I would think are a must for this type of transaction. Or just don't pay until you get the car.

This is very unfortunate that scammer were able to slip through using online platforms and bitcoin to scam you. If you only have known the identity of the said scammer then you could have a chance OP that you can trace him/her.

Now, refund is almost impossible because the transaction was peer to peer and does not have any third party acting as an escrow. This is very sad unfortunate events for OP.

You would have made a post or asked a question here on the forum about that deal before paying now the milk is spilt.
When will people stop doing deal with am anonymous person that you don't have any link or know there reputation. Probably they told you bitcoin company can refund you if it goes wrong and that gave you a sense if security. Well bitcoin is not a company rather it's a medium of transfer and as it stands you can't get refunded only if the scam sends it back but the good thing is that you can monitor the bitcoin account you sent it to and trace the final point of withdrawal