Got scammed .. don’t know what to do

[yanawak]

So I buy a lot of clothes from instagram thrift stores, and there was this one store that posted a story saying a dress is available as the girl who bought it is selling it again due to some size issue and to contact the girl.

I dmed her and decided to buy the dress. This is the part where i fucked up.. I paid her the full amount before she shipped it, cuz i was used to doing this while buying from instagram stores. she told me that she’ll ship it to me in 2-3 days.

a few days later she told me that the post office is closed because of dussehra and other holidays and will open a few days later, and she’ll ship it then.

she didnt reply to my texts after that. nor did i get any sms from india post or any other delivery service. i called her on the number i made the payment to, and she picked up, and said she made her friend ship it for her and that she’ll send me the shipping info asap.
i felt a bit relieved but then she hasnt replied to my texts since then, and whenever i call her it says her phone is switched off
my whatsapp messages are not getting delivered
she’s deactivated her instagram account as well.
it’s been 5 days since she picked up my call that one time.

the thing is i made my friends call that number but even for them it was saying it’s switched off. so idk what happened

but it’s been almost a month and i paid a good amount of money..

the information i have about her:
full name (from her ig username)
college (ig bio)
phone number (the no i sent the money to)
her email (through her linkedin)
dob (found on google in a link from her college website)
shipping address (the store she bought from shared it with me bcz i told them how she scammed me)

should i file a complaint to the cyber crime cell? will that do anything? is there anything else i should do?

 

[stevesteve]

@yanawak Maybe her dad died or maybe she got hit by a bus or maybe she married her hot boyfriend and moved to new Zealand. Life happens.

 

[mbtx]

@stevesteve Ya ,true, people deactivate their account and switch off their phones when such stuff happens ..

 

[stevesteve]

@mbtx Maybe she jumped out of a window, goodbye cruel world and all that.

 

[mbtx]

@stevesteve Y do I get the feeling tat she deactivated her insta account and created a reddit account and is replying to me ..

 

[stevesteve]

@mbtx

 

[mbtx]

@stevesteve

 

[motherofone]

@yanawak I think you should because if you have the evidence then it will be easy but first send a legal notice through a lawyer for repayment of money or goods. If further there is no reply then you can surely complaint but you have to be sure that it's her otherwise you may be blamed for false accusation.

 

[overanddone]

@motherofone How much will the lawyers charge for that?

 

[motherofone]

@overanddone Sorry brother

I do not have any idea regarding how much the expenses may occur

 

[mommybiker]

@yanawak TIL, people trust random "stores" they see on Instagram.

 

[gryanhart]

@yanawak If you go down the cyber cell route, get her IP address if you can.

As you already have her email, send her an email from another burner account and say you're interested in buying some product from her store (give a link to the product).

If she responds to your by email, then you can find out her IP address as most email providers transmit this information in the "headers". A 5 min Google search is good enough to learn how to find the IP address from an email. This won't work if she is using a VPN to hide her email or if she is using anonymous email service like Proton mail.

This is the new school method.

The old school method is to try to bait her from another instagram account and get her to reveal more information about herself - enough to locate/identify her in the real world.

 

[pj1070]

@gryanhart ip is of the email server not the sender

 

[gryanhart]

@pj1070 Right, my bad. Well, no school like old school then. Lure the scammer into a trap he/she can't resist.

 

[mrdean36]

@yanawak Just dispute the transaction in UPI.

 

[guzzy]

@mrdean36 Doesnt work. Been there, done that!

 

[olivertree]

@yanawak Can you share her UPI id publicly.. also file a consumer complaint and post in twitter . Don’t take this lying down , if nothing else it will help others