I was ripped off

[panganib999]

As much as we want to help you or have that amount of money be returned to you (that's still more or less around 1500 bucks for Pete's sake) we can't really do much, nor can you. Bitcoin's decentralized so there's no governing body that would assist you when it comes to stuff like this. So you're pretty much paying your first expensive lesson in the crypto world and hopefully this opens your eyes to the dangers of belligerent crypto usage.

If you still have the wallet or the transaction ID I think you can report it to Electrum's devs and have them ban that user's account but that wouldn't guarantee that your funds will be returned to you. Let this be a lesson that whenever you're playing with crypto, that items you're buying with crypto should be given to you first before sending payments, if both hesitate to that setup, meetups are the way to go.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

If you still have the wallet or the transaction ID I think you can report it to Electrum's devs and have them ban that user's account but that wouldn't guarantee that your funds will be returned to you. Let this be a lesson that whenever you're playing with crypto, that items you're buying with crypto should be given to you first before sending payments, if both hesitate to that setup, meetups are the way to go.

According to the OP, he doesn't have the wallet or transaction ID, and I think it's already too late for him, because even before he reports the scammer, they might have moved the asset to a different wallet or might have even converted it to Fiat. This is obviously a hard lesson we learn by trusting people online, mostly people that you have not met before or done any transactions with before. If the scammer was someone he knows, then he could possibly report the case to the police or the right authority, but it's unfortunate that he might not get back the money. I have also fallen victim to this kind of scam in the past, but in my case, it was not a car I was buying.

[johnsaributua]

Whenever you read stories like this I feel it is important to remember that it wasn’t some failure of a protocol or software bug that lead to this rip off occurring. It was just a standard run of the mill scammer that happened to find a victim willing to send funds online in a non-reversible fashion. Let his mistake be your education.

Let's also see that the victim is also to blame. Remember,  there's no scammer if there is to be scamming, as he says he doesn't have any information about the recipient, and even if he does, there's no way to trace who's the owner of that address. That's why there are so many scammers out there because they know that some people can be easily fooled. I'm not victim-blaming here, but that's the fact: before sending money or your asset, you have the responsibility to assess first if the person with whom you're in a transaction is legitimate and trustworthy. You should conduct an assessment and also ask for proof or anything else that could identify the legitimacy of the person. This will serve as his lesson, but what about the others? We should spread awareness about this matter, especially about cryptocurrency-related transactions.

there are more benefits that make victims feel there is convenience and a suitable price for transactions,

If we prevent it by educating people around us, that's good bro because it will become a habit and remember even in passing.

This type of crime does occur because there is an opportunity and with soft selling from certain people (perpetrators), good speaking skills and listeners who get carried away, even though there is no intention sometimes people can take that gap, it's a bad character.

In my opinion, involve other people if interaction via telephone people who offer any type of sale to listen together, but if via social media do not hesitate to ask for help to argue with friends who can be trusted, at least it can minimize the possibility of what happens. and realize the false trust that the perpetrator gives.

Hopefully, with so many cases, people will be more careful and more aware of both sellers and buyers, especially over long distances, I'm sure there are more effective methods even though the distance is not close.

[GideonGono]

I sent a guy a down payment on a car. I use a program called Electrum. After I sent him the money I figured out I was being scammed. Do I have any recourse? Any way to recover my money?

I do have the guys wallet ID and the transaction ID.

Thankfully is was only 55.58663 mBTC

AFAIK once it is confirmed there is nothing that we could do to retrieve it back into our wallet.
If it could be retrieve then there wouldn't be any victim of scams in crypto, you aren't the only one that got scammed.
There are so many crypto users that got scammed but couldn't do anything about it specially on investment scheme's.

[davis196]

I sent a guy a down payment on a car. I use a program called Electrum. After I sent him the money I figured out I was being scammed. Do I have any recourse? Any way to recover my money?

I do have the guys wallet ID and the transaction ID.

Thankfully is was only 55.58663 mBTC

No, you can't recover the BTC.
The only thing you could do is to call the police and tell them about the scammer. Did you met the scammer in person? Do you know how the scammer looks like?
Another good thing you can do it so explain to the forum members the scam in detail. Where did you find the scammer and what is he offering?
Does he sell cars and asks for a down payment in BTC? Why would you send a down payment(in a currency, that cannot be refunded) for a car? Legit car sellers don't ask for such down payments.

[Forever101]

To engage in an online business with Bitcoin that will be hard to recover is not too ideal. If you will use bitcoins for an online business, then use an escrow, that's a bit safer than direct transaction that can be lost forever. I think bitcoins is best as payment method in a face to face transaction or making payments for offers received. Next time, op should not trust anyone no matter how convincing they maybe , once you send them your coins , then they get you blocked.

[Zanab247]

You can recover your money back if the transaction is not successful, but if the transaction is successful, there is no way you can recover the money back because, the moment the person received the payment, he or she will quickly convert it to fiat to be able to withdraw them out without any challenges. Assume is a fiat transaction you did with he or she, I think it will be very easy for you to recover your money back through your bank and the person will be charged for fraudulent act which it can lead the person to prison. I feel your pain about the lost, but don't let it make you to give up on BTC than to take it as a lesson that will never repeat itself again in the future.

[FinneysTrueVision]

If you still have the wallet or the transaction ID I think you can report it to Electrum's devs and have them ban that user's account but that wouldn't guarantee that your funds will be returned to you.

Electrum is a non-custodial wallet which relies on a network of independent servers. They can’t just arbitrarily ban a user.

I think this is what you are looking for - 7ff518aae3b8c95c530410aff6c37601c8a3cfda65cd960c3ad63a0551ac57a6

The person who scammed you sent those funds to 1AN5soiGR9V87BrWxGdLyLBwvZXh1Ptn34 which belongs to Binance. That address receives deposits frequently so it is likely there are many more victims. Many of those deposits are coming from Paxful. I don’t know how helpful law enforcement might be but $1.5k is enough to be considered felony theft and there are enough breadcrumbs available that they could find him with enough effort and with cooperation from centralized exchanges.

[fuguebtc]

If you still have the wallet or the transaction ID I think you can report it to Electrum's devs and have them ban that user's account but that wouldn't guarantee that your funds will be returned to you.

Electrum is a non-custodial wallet which relies on a network of independent servers. They can’t just arbitrarily ban a user.

If Electrum developers can do that then their wallet is no different than a custodial wallet. Furthermore, is there any guarantee that the OP's story is true, or for that amount of money, is it worth going to the Electrum developers when it is the OP's own fault? This solution is too impractical.

I think this is what you are looking for - 7ff518aae3b8c95c530410aff6c37601c8a3cfda65cd960c3ad63a0551ac57a6

The person who scammed you sent those funds to 1AN5soiGR9V87BrWxGdLyLBwvZXh1Ptn34 which belongs to Binance. That address receives deposits frequently so it is likely there are many more victims. Many of those deposits are coming from Paxful. I don’t know how helpful law enforcement might be but $1.5k is enough to be considered felony theft and there are enough breadcrumbs available that they could find him with enough effort and with cooperation from centralized exchanges.

There is no way to solve even scams worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, let alone that small amount. Cryptocurrencies are still not strictly regulated in many countries and governments regularly advise people not to participate and if there are problems they cannot intervene. So I think it will be very difficult for OP to get his money back.

This is one of many risks when we participate in the market and we need to improve our knowledge to protect ourselves instead of thinking about the law.

[adultcrypto]

I think this is what you are looking for - 7ff518aae3b8c95c530410aff6c37601c8a3cfda65cd960c3ad63a0551ac57a6

There's no way to reverse this transaction it has already had 454 confirmations. Only 0 confirmation can still be reversible.

How did you find this guy?
If you have more other info than wallet ID and transaction you can maybe still able to find that guy.
Like the full name or a plate number of the car if the guy gives you some pics of this car?

I don't think the guy actually owns the car but the plates on the car are New Jersey - 12845QQ and he gave me a name of Damon Eden

Before making the payment, do you a kind of run a background check? Like know his house address or if he is not operating as a registered company? There should be some level of convincing information you ought to have before making payments because you cannot possibly send money to some random guys posing as the owner of some random vehicle on the street.

If you have some form of reliable information about him, I think you can get the police involve and they will be of immense help.

[CageMabok]

To engage in an online business with Bitcoin that will be hard to recover is not too ideal. If you will use bitcoins for an online business, then use an escrow, that's a bit safer than direct transaction that can be lost forever. I think bitcoins is best as payment method in a face to face transaction or making payments for offers received. Next time, op should not trust anyone no matter how convincing they maybe , once you send them your coins , then they get you blocked.

The idea of using escrow is a very good option if the transaction uses Bitcoin because there is no best cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin so the choice to use escrow is a very wise thing if we are very far from the person. But it would be different if someone just spent something at a shop or company that was willing to accept Bitcoin for payment, we could immediately carry out the transaction without having to think about using escrow if we were directly in the company or shop.

[Renampun]

I sent a guy a down payment on a car. I use a program called Electrum. After I sent him the money I figured out I was being scammed. Do I have any recourse? Any way to recover my money?

I do have the guys wallet ID and the transaction ID.

Thankfully is was only 55.58663 mBTC

sorry for the loss of money you experienced, and make it a habit to only send bitcoins to trusted people or always use escrow for initial transactions, currently many workers commit fraud against consumers and their companies, the target is consumers who have large payment obligations, stay alert to everyone you meet, don't be fooled by those who claim to accept payments via bitcoin, they are  deceive you because your knowledge in bitcoin is still low, you must be able to refuse to make transactions with things you don't know at all.

[moneystery]

too bad that you don't have any way to be able to return your missing money. but why don't you use escrow services from the start? especially for purchasing transactions like this, escrow is needed to keep the transactions that you can run smoothly because today there are many cases of fraud and using escrow services the best you can do to secure your transactions.

[GeorgeJohn]

Their is one certain time we lifted scam campaign in forum in which it was written by poem format and after thread many people have to come against scam. I'm sorry for your loss because I don't think it's possible for you to recover the money, even if the money was sent through fiat banking system you won't have recovered it, except the recipient has not withdrawn the money yet.

Since you used ethereum network the funds will not be recovered but it can be traceable if the recipient send it to exchange directly or transfer the coins in the ethereum wallet to another ethereum wallet, but a process whereby its been transferred to mixer and it get mixed I don't think its possible for it to be traceable any longer, even when it been swamped to another coin...the thing is that let us be careful to our transactions because we have alot of scammers that want to take advantages of us.

Scammers is everywhere and they are growing wings everyday by day, so we need to understand and identify scammers when they come for our dm through their conversation, let us not be victim of scammers.