what can I legally do?

Question

I tried to sell my carpet on line ($1000) to help my mother, there was a guy e-mailed me and he said he lives in England and he has sent me a money order for $3900 and he said I can keep onther $100 and asked me to send him the rest which was $2800, so I deposieted his money order in my bank and sent him a $2800 thru Western Union to his gaiven address, Now after Ten days my bank says his money order check is not good and they want me to pay back $2800, I know I have been ripped off, I am tust 18 with no exp. and nobody to help me out. my question is what can I legally do?

Answer 1

Learn from it..........

Answer 2

This is a common scam and many people older and wiser than your tender age of 18 have been taken in by it.

You can and should file a complaint with the F.B.I. Here is the link:

http://www.ic3.gov/

Now for the bad news...

Before accepting any funds from anyone and deposting the money into your checking account to be sure the funds are good, either by contacting the bank it was drafted on and even then, you had the right to hold the carpet and any "overages" and not to try to draw against any of those funds until the money order cleared your account (your Bank could have helped you determine this if you had asked as to how long would been).

You will need to work with the bank and make arrangements to pay the money back. Bring a copy of the the complaint filed with the FBI to prove that you were the victim of a scam, not a participant in it so they won't consider pursuing fraud charges against you.

You could hire an attorney and try to pursue litigation against the person that perpetrated this fraud against you, but it is highly unlikely you will be successful and hiring an attorney where you live and another one in England to try to pursue a claim will likely end up costing you more than $2,800.

Answer 3

The sad answer is very little. I would imagine your "scammers" have supplied a false address and as you can collect western union transfers from anywhere it will be impossible to trace. Contact your local police and report this as a fraud, see what they are willing to do. contact the bank, ask them why the money order is no good. but be prepared for very little to be done. you may have to mark this down as a bad experience and move on, albeit an expensive lesson to learn.

Answer 4

What happened to you is AGAINST THE LAW, and you can take action. Your bank will have an electronic scan of the money order. You should report this to the police immediately, and it should be a Federal Offense, so provide them with as much information as you can. Once you file your report, you need to take it to your bank so that they know that you have filed charges. This should allow a deferral on your payment to them, as long as they know that your complaint is legit, but you need to get on it!

Answer 5

sad, sad.