To get this person into trouble?

[Iwishiwereheather]

I was purchasing some furniture a couple of months back through Instagram. I put a deposit down through PayPal and then the person blocked me. I paid through ‘friends and family’ therefore no payment protection.

Very annoyed with myself but learnt from the incident.

Logged into my PayPal last night and saw the person still in my contacts. They have now updated their email address to their work email - think [email protected]

I’m tempted to contacted their place of work seeing as they’ve linked an account that scams people to their work address.

Aibu or should I just leave it?

I thought this was a bit dramatic for a tenner or so ... £250 is a lot of money!! I hope the arsehole gets fired

Even if it seems to you that nothing comes of it scamboy will get an unpleasant shock will need to do some fast talking at work and there will at minimum be a question mark over his probity.

Dd and dh got scammed in a similar way purchasing her birthday present. Very plausible. These thieves deserve all they get.

Well done! I hope he's feeling very uncomfortable now karma has but him in the ass. Keep an eye on that PayPal address changing, you'll know he's then been spoken too. Even if nothing major happens he's had a close call and hopefully a shock to not do it again.

He behaved really badly. Good luck, op!

So desperate to find out what happens

Report them, and don't use "friends and family" on Paypal unless it is actually friends and family.

Report to the police.

Its possible there is an internal investigation going on and you won't hear anything for a while, if at all.. At least you tried OP. Good luck!

Glad you reported it and that you don't expect to see your money again.

If I were the scammer, I'd try to worm my way out of it by saying either I'd never heard of you, or you were a nutter ex who was stalking me and trying to fuck my life up.

My gut feeling is the employer will believe him over you - unless they have other reasons not to trust him.

Sorry, committed the cardinal MN crime of not RTFT.

Hope you manage to get the scammer into trouble OP.

Well I sent a chaser email and absolutely nothing back from the company as of now.

Really disappointing to be honest.

Sorry to hear you got scammed OP. I hope the employee gets the sack at the very least.

In my opinion Instagram needs to crack down on this behaviour. Last Christmas I was searching online for a particular tree ornament that was very scarce and not available in the UK. Instagram kept showing me pictures of this ornament for sale in my feed (obviously tracking my search history). When I checked out the linked online shops they all had made up names like dddhhrrrr1 & 2,3 etc. So obviously scams and there wasn’t anyway of reporting them.

Personally I would never buy from an online shop that wasn’t one of the big names. But I was tempted because I knew how hard it was to get hold of the product I wanted and it was being dangled in front of my eyes.

I hope you manage to get your money back. Scammer arseholes!

They won’t tell you the detail of what happens, due to confidentiality/data protection. I think you did the right thing, hope you get your money back but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing he’s been caught.

This is an individual scammer, not a company @draughtycatflap. The person has used their work email address for PayPal.

OP, it may take a while for them to investigate and they may be checking in the background whether their employee used their equipment, e.g. work laptop or phone, when scamming you. That could affect how their policies apply and what action they can take.

Report them, and don't use "friends and family" on Paypal unless it is actually friends and family.

Exactly. Am I right that using this function means the payment is free and you don't pay a fee?

Do they have twitter?

Do they have a Facebook account? Maybe put a post on there. I’d also call next week to follow up on the emails. Worth a shot!

@IstandwithJackieWeaver

This is an individual scammer, not a company *@draughtycatflap*. The person has used their work email address for PayPal.

OP, it may take a while for them to investigate and they may be checking in the background whether their employee used their equipment, e.g. work laptop or phone, when scamming you. That could affect how their policies apply and what action they can take.

Yes I understood the OP. An individual pretending to be a company (or multiple companies) through Instagram in my case. Instagram are allowing this to happen. My point still stands.

@Lauraa7

Do they have a Facebook account? Maybe put a post on there. I’d also call next week to follow up on the emails. Worth a shot!

I mean, OP’s in the Midlands and this guy is in Scotland. It’s doubtful they have any mutuals so her post would fall on deaf ears

Yeah, I'd take it to Twitter

I think whoever you emailed is highly likely to think more fool you for buying stuff off Instagram through PayPal friends and family!

@MintyMabel

Report them, and don't use "friends and family" on Paypal unless it is actually friends and family.

Exactly. Am I right that using this function means the payment is free and you don't pay a fee?

Yes and also that buyers have basically no protections. Because, you know, you can trust your friends and family.

While it’s very frustrating for you, and was very stupid of you .... honestly I don’t see why you’ve flagged this guy to his work. He didn’t ‘sell’ you the item through his work, he didn’t advertise through his work, he didn’t have a work email address then. He has simply updated his PayPal months later to a work email, possibly after getting a new job which required this.
He’s scammed you, but NOT from his work. You should/could have contacted the police, but not his work imo.

The police wouldn’t do anything either. OP freely chose to circumvent her own legal protections as a buyer. You can’t then look for legal recourse when that goes wrong.