Scammed Out Of $150 - What To Do?

33 replies
In June I purchased a marketing campaign for $150 that guaranteed to generate $5,000 in sales in the first 60 days, or a generous refund would be offered. At first I believe it said 150% refund but now on the sales page (which I will not link because I don't want anyone being scammed by him) it states an even more ridiculous 1500% refund guarantee.

Now, the claim to make that much money guaranteed should have kept me away, but I wanted to take the risk and see what happened. Big mistake...

After making the payment via PayPal, I contacted the seller with instructions for my campaign. No response...until I opened a PayPal dispute. He told me that once I close the dispute he would get started on the campaign. Fair enough, or so I thought at the time.

A few weeks passed and I did not receive even one SUBSCRIBER to the website that was supposedly being advertised, much less a sale. I requested a simple 100% refund on the grounds of non-performance, as it was obvious this person was not going to deliver the promised sales quota anyway. He refused, beating around the bush by saying he had sent our emails to PayPal for them to "approve" the cancellation of the 60 day ad campaign - as if he would need their approval to simply click the refund button! He was acting like I wasn't letting him finish the campaign . Like a true sucker, I gave in and told him I would allow him to finish the campaign. He said he knows "exactly how long it takes" and would "make things happen for me" - after that, he stopped responding to my emails.

I talked on the phone with a PayPal agent who said that he could get their fraud department to investigate this issue and possibly help me. Unfortunately, they just sent the same email they did before, that after a PayPal dispute is closed, they can't do anything. How absurd! I reported the case to the FTC as well. I don't know what police/courts in his area would be able to do.

I highly doubt after the 60 days is up he'll suddenly start responding again and graciously grant the promised refund. As it turns out, the owner of PaySpree.com has been scammed by the same person and offered me his condolences.

I know that $150 isn't a terribly large amount of money, but PayPal is doing nothing to prevent this scammer from harming others, and will take no action in getting my money back. I don't have much choice other than to count this as a loss, but I'm sure there is something that can be done... Any insights on your part are appreciated!
#$150 #scammed
  • Profile picture of the author Rich Struck
    Originally Posted by nuneybopper View Post

    In June I purchased a marketing campaign for $150 that guaranteed to generate $5,000 in sales
    This didn't set off any alarms for you?

    Sorry but I think you are out of luck, especially now that you've closed the PayPal dispute.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ngwu Ogonnaya Precious
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author The_Archer
      I'd really be interested in investigating this. PM me the website if you want.

      You have a few options.

      1-) Does the vendor go through an affiliate program like Clickbank? If so, CB will refund your order and not ask questions.

      2-) Stick with your claim in PayPal, never negotiate with the terrorists. Sometimes you have to be a jerk to get your point across. Some vendors will not take you seriously unless you show you mean business.

      3-) Email the webmaster of the site and request the refund. Tell him you are giving him 48 hours to refund. If that don't work, contact his/her hosting company. You can find the hosting company by doing a search on Who.is: Whois, Website, Domain Name, and IP Tools - Who.is Most hosts wants to keep a good reputation and will likely resolve the issue.

      4-) Report to the BBB, if you have a legit claim, they will help you out.

      A 150% refund claim, yeah that will rise suspicions in most net-savvy people. 1500%, you can probably bet that you will need to prove that you used the techniques and that you did not earn anything. Generally, if it don't look right, it's not.

      Good luck to you
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      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        Here's what paypal says about canceling a dispute:

        Wait until you are 100% satisfied with the resolution before closing a dispute. A closed dispute cannot be reopened or escalated to a PayPal claim.
        Advice to be a jerk with paypal is bad advice. You can't force Paypal to violate its own policies.

        kay
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    • Profile picture of the author JoeCool
      Here's some battle tested advice for you moving forward, my fellow Warrior...

      1). If you used a Credit/Debit Card attached to your PayPal account to make this purchase, contact your bank or Credit Card company and do a chargeback on the grounds that the product/service was never delivered.

      If you didn't use a Credit/Debit Card attached to you PayPal account, make sure you:

      a).
      Have one attached to your account to make All of your PayPal purchases.

      b). Keep you PayPal account balance at $0.00 at all times so that the only way you can make a purchase is by using you Credit/Debit card (don't use your attached bank account, only your Credit/Debit card).


      2). In the future, if there is even a hint of a PayPal seller dropping the ball in any way before the 45 day dispute period expires, file the dispute and get your money back! Don't hesitate, don't wait, don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt online, or you and your hard earned money will soon part ways.

      Anyone that has excuses for why they can't deliver as promised, and I don't care what the product or service is, will most likely scam you out of your money.

      Take this as a $150 lesson my friend, and from now on be preemptive instead of becoming a victim.


      HTH,
      JoeCool
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    It's a harsh lesson - maybe you'll get a refund, maybe not.

    However, you were right to say you should have known this was scammy just from the promises made.

    But - it's not paypal's fault. You opened a dispute and then closed it. When you closed it, you were telling paypal "it's OK" - and I expect the seller fully knew that when he told you to close it in exchange for more promises.

    If you open a dispute with paypal, do it only when you are not willing to settle for anything except your money back. You may not win the dispute - but if you close it, you lose your chance at getting help from Paypal.

    Good idea to talk to someone at Paypal - and maybe they will watch this person because of that.

    Don't know what it was you were selling - but when something sounds too good to be true, it often is. Don't buy anything "to see what will happen" unless you are prepared to lose money.

    You can't believe every promise you read - but it's a hard way to learn that lesson.

    kay
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  • Profile picture of the author John Wilkes
    How did you fund your Paypal payment? by credit card, Bank account?
    Contact your Bank or Credit card company and get them involved. If you can prove fraud, they will pressure Paypal on your behalf to sought it out.
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  • Profile picture of the author Caleb Spilchen
    Why you would ever close a dispute w.o a full resolve worries me.

    File with ripoff report and bbb.
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  • Profile picture of the author GoogleWarrior
    Where can we see this website online? I want to see the site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom B
      Banned
      Was this a wso offer?
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  • Profile picture of the author JD Nunes
    The site is here: Home - THE INTERNETS ONLY GUARANTEED SALES ADVERTISING!!!

    I'm surprised that PayPal hasn't suspended his account, since they have done so for far less extreme offenses on countless occasions. I believe the funds for the PayPal purchase were taken directly from my bank account, could have been debit card, same account; either way, I will be talking to my bank about this and hopefully they'll be able to work with PayPal in compensating me for my loss.

    Also, here is a page where another person got scammed by him: http://incomeknockout.com/scams.html
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  • Profile picture of the author JD Nunes
    Those who inquired can have most questions answered by looking at that site. It's a done-for-you marketing campaign, well, it's actually nothing but a scam, but that's what it claims to be, so there's no proving you tried it all before getting a refund. It just states that if you don't make $5,000 in sales in 60 days you get a refund. It wouldn't make sense for him to ignore my emails after responding to some of them before, and then suddenly respond again with a refund. The information the owner of PaySpree.com gave me was quite alarming and solidified my suspicions of this guy being shady.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Lucas
    Thats an interesting way to manipulate the system: get people to open a dispute then convince them to close it. The paypal fraud department should target that issue. This is the problem with automated systems/policies.
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  • Profile picture of the author wvwritingservices
    OMG you seriously bought from that website? It is the worst website I have seen in a long time. Have you not heard the expression a picture is worth a thousand words? I don't mean to be harsh but that whole site screams scam. When you make a purchase you want to buy from a website that is done professionally. It shows you the character of the person you are buying from.

    What can you do? well contact your bank and they will get your money back cause regardless you closed the dispute or not on paypal they can do a charge back to your account and paypal will have no choice but to get the money from that guy.

    Then what do you do? You take a few minutes out of your day to make sure they never do it again by taking the website name and writing horrible reviews and posting them to pages that are instantly indexed like associated content and then digg the article. Why? It's simple most the time when a person is going to make a purchase online and have never heard of the website or company they do a search on the search engines to see if anyone has written any negative reviews on it, which judging by this website I am sure they have!! That way you can prevent others from being scammed like you.
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  • Profile picture of the author wvwritingservices
    Also another very IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER NO ONE CAN GUARANTEE YOU WILL GET SALES - that screams fraud all over it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Mai
    Yeah paypal can't just not do anything. That is bad, what if the same person scammed 1000 other people through paypal and paypal does nothing about it?. If i was you i would call back paypal and try again, if they still won't ask to speak to the manager. These kinds of scams and frauds piss me off
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      You can give the site out on scam.com

      I would go there as that site can alert a lot of others.

      I have a scams blog too if you'd like to write a post about it. But it has to be factual stuff and can't get too emotional.

      (I so shouldn't have it, lol)

      I get people who google programs and I seem to get some good response there.
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  • Profile picture of the author Crew Chief
    This dude is using a FREE Webs account?

    What, he can't even afford hosting?

    In addition, he's using a email address to a server that is not even set up. Now that's real professional and will endear confidence.

    What! How hard is it to launch a website if a person is selling guaranteed traffic?

    This has S-C-A-M written all over it.

    You need to call PayPal and see about reinitializing that dispute.

    Don't even think about pulling your punches again.

    And by the way, I have a site for such scenarios: Preventing Internet Fraud and Internet Scams - Scam Tracker

    You put the material together and I'll post it

    Giles, the Crew Chief
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
    WOW!! WHAT!! A!! GREAT!! SITE!!
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    I hate to be a dick, but chalk this up to a $150 lesson in why you should never believe bull**** claims online.

    If it sounds too good to be true IT IS.
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    If you paid via a credit care, you have a shot as a dispute/charge back with your credit card. If not, then suck it up as you are sol. Bite the bullet and learn the lesson you paid $150 for. If anyone ever offers you $5,000 for $150, don't believe them. You can't buy $5,000 that cheap anywhere.
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  • Profile picture of the author Always-A-Warrior
    Anything over a dollar is a great amount when you don't like your job or working for someone else, have bills to pay and have a family to raise. So $150 is plenty to be ranting about.

    Now I checked the site and I have just one question ....

    What the heck were you thinking when you read the site?. Its a total mess. I mean come on it has red flags all over it but then you didn't know. So take it as a lesson learned. I've had my lesson learned years ago as well so welcome to the jungle.

    You can contact Webs.com and have his site taken down.

    I love to dig in deep and find out who is this rat.

    ----- added ----

    check out whois. the guy is from sunnyvale, CA but may not be his real name.
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  • Profile picture of the author affiliatechick
    Any advertising medium that promises you'll make x number of revenue from their campaigns can't be trusted... it's too exact. How are they supposed to know anything about your niche, the people in it who buy, how much they buy, etc...? $5k is a nice number, but if your niche was basket weaving, a random advertiser can't just say, "yea, I'll make you $5k in 90 days with that...".

    Unless he had legit (and possibly overwhelming) proof on his site of several people making at least $5k in 90 days in various, random niches, that's another story...
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  • Profile picture of the author affiliatechick
    P.S.

    Just checked out the site that you listed in one of your responses. Yea, LOTS of red flags! The most obvious one being that any individual or company that hosts their advertising services on a "free hosting" type of website like webs.com , CAN'T be legit. Don't get me wrong, Webs is a great site to use for several different purposes, but if someone offers what they claim are "out of this world" advertising services but can't afford to pay a few bucks for monthly hosting and a one time domain name fee, there's a problem.


    We live and we learn...
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  • Profile picture of the author BeauJustin
    Talk to your bank ASAP. As long as it is within the
    banks time limit. you should be able to file a fraud
    report.

    I was defrauded on an Ebay purchase of a computer
    a few years back, and the payment was made via
    Western Union's horrible answer to Paypal. My bank
    actually issued me a full refund while they investigated
    the validity of my claim.

    Hopefully you still have time to open it. For my bank
    it's 60 days.

    If that doesn't work hire some thugs with garden
    hoses to go kick down his door and take it back.

    (Disclaimer: the above statement was made in
    satire, and is in no way an actual incitement of
    violence against anyone. If this had been a real
    threat, the poster would have offered to drive
    the thugs to the jerks house.)
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Usher
    Have to agree with the others. There are soooo many red flags on that site that I wouldn't touch it with a 100ft barge pole. It doesn't help the OP now, but these flags may help people in the future.

    500% GUARANTEED SALES ADVERTISING!!
    1) A ridiculous guarantee that could never be upheld.

    PLEASE CONTACT US AT: admin@domainmarketingpwr.com
    2) Using a different domain name in the email, and even that domain name is not live.

    At the end of the 60 DAYS you have NOT made a MINIMUM OF $5000 in SALES we will ISSUE YOU A 1500% REFUND!!!
    3) As well as the ridiculous refund it is also made available only after 60 days. The exact amount of time that you cannot dispute a paypal transaction after.

    4) The use of a free hosting account when he's charging $150 a pop for the service. Probably signed up with a fake name / address etc so as not to be traceable.

    I know we all get caught up in these offers sometimes, but the old addage "if it's too good to be true ......!" really does apply in this instance.

    Jeff
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill View Post

    If you follow the same steps the scammer used, you probably WILL make 5k in 60 days.

    So what are you complaining about?
    Brilliant freaking idea ... scam people out of money to make money. Why didn't I think of that?

    Seriously, is that your contribution to the thread? Glad you told us so we don't click on anything in your sig file ... ever.

    To the OP: I'm afraid you probably lost $150 but learned a lesson. Never buy from a site that makes really wild promises like that and never buy from a site that types in all CAPS.
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    • Profile picture of the author CarloD.
      Ya, I took one look at the site, and it's horrible. it doesn't even aesthetically look like a half decent sales pages. Sorry for the $150 loss.
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  • Profile picture of the author Frank Ayres
    Originally Posted by nuneybopper View Post

    Now, the claim to make that much money guaranteed should have kept me away, but I wanted to take the risk and see what happened. Big mistake...
    If you were prepared to take the risk what are you moaning for?
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  • Profile picture of the author Caleb Spilchen
    Ok, Let's look at this.

    Webs.com = Free Hosting / Free Subdomain.

    a) He claims to generate 5k in sales. Why the HECK is he using webs.com then?

    At this point, I would ditch the sales page. Dude, remember to look at the domain when buying
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  • Profile picture of the author mattlaclear
    There is no way a vendor could possibly guarantee that you will make $5000 using their service. What if your product was bitter sweet chocolate covered worms sold by the dozen? Would they be able to honor that guarantee? I think you should thank this so called vendor for having taught you a very valuable lesson about who to trust and who not to trust. It's probably a lesson that you will never forget either.
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  • Profile picture of the author Barry Unruh
    You just did the best thing possible. You started a complaint somewhere on the internet which can rank well on Google.

    Now at least when someone tries to find information about his "product" or "service", they have a good chance of finding this thread on Google.

    It is probably about all you can do without wasting more of your own valuable time.

    Now, flip it around....

    What did you just learn?

    You learned people are willing to pay $150 for a service, even if it is not on a great looking site.

    You learned when people are ripped off they get mad, and attempt to get even.

    You learned the evils of not responding to customer complaints.

    He may have just done you a huge favor. If you take those three little lessons, you can make back the $150 hundreds of times, simply by offering a valuable product on a quality looking website, which gives clients exactly what they want, and you take care of them consistently.

    He is the real loser in this deal, because in the end, he has nothing. You have a lesson.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    When you closed the dispute, you basically said all was fine, etc... You should have had him refund you 100% of what you paid(which would close the dispute), and pay 50% more to make good.

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author IMAdam
    Wow, that site just doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, at all. I'm surprised you pulled out your credit card at all.

    If you can't get your money back with a dispute with your credit card company, I know it's a hard pill to swallow, I would chalk it up as a bad move.

    Hey, look at the bright side, you learned a lesson and hopefully you won't be making this move again...I hope anyways.
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