I have been scammed, how to get my money back?

T

Truth.

Banned
Jul 17, 2014
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I plan to buy a website soon so I wanted to ask you this question.

Let's assume I bought a site from flippa by using escrow. A couple of weeks after the purchase, it turns out i have been scammed.

I have escrow information of the seller. He lives in Sudan. I am an US citizen and I live in Europe. I also have proof of the scam.

In this case, what are my options to get my money back?
 


Have you submitted any feedback on Escrow after the deal over ? If not , you still have chance to complaint them about it.
 
Kelowna said:
define: scammed? You got the site you paid for but now dont like it? or you never got what you paid for?
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Weeds said:
You should have declined the deal during ESCROW! You would have plenty of time to find out whether or not this deal was a good one.
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Inspection period was 1 week. A few days after I approved the deal on escrow, I figured out the site was just a scam.

So I can't change the past and I want my money back. What are my options now?

Can I sue the seller who lives in Sudan?
He lives in another far country so how is it possible to progress?
 
That still doesn't clarify what the scam was? Are you trying to say that the site's purpose is to somehow scam visitors?

Because if that's the case, you had a week to figure that out before losing your money it sounds like. The only way I can see you having a legitimate complaint is if the seller didn't hand you over the site.

It sounds like you didn't do your due diligence during the review period and that possibly the seller was scummy, but that isn't the same thing as being scammed. In any event, that sucks, but unless you didn't get control of the site about the only thing you can do is complain about it here, and I don't see how that will help. Chalk it up as a learning lesson and be sure to be more thorough in the future.
 
statelizard said:
That still doesn't clarify what the scam was? Are you trying to say that the site's purpose is to somehow scam visitors?

Because if that's the case, you had a week to figure that out before losing your money it sounds like. The only way I can see you having a legitimate complaint is if the seller didn't hand you over the site.

It sounds like you didn't do your due diligence during the review period and that possibly the seller was scummy, but that isn't the same thing as being scammed. In any event, that sucks, but unless you didn't get control of the site about the only thing you can do is complain about it here, and I don't see how that will help. Chalk it up as a learning lesson and be sure to be more thorough in the future.
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Everything looks natural about the site. The problem is that once I approved the deal on Escrow, it just lost traffic suddenly. Why would a site maintains its traffic for a long time, and lose its most of the traffic just like that? It is very weird and unlikely. Hence, it is a nicely orchestrated scam. I had chance to analyze the site for 7 days and everything was fine.

So I can't sue the seller? Is it because he lives in Sudan??
 
Truth. said:
Everything looks natural about the site. The problem is that once I approved the deal on Escrow, it just lost traffic suddenly. Why would a site maintains its traffic for a long time, and lose its most of the traffic just like that? It is very weird and unlikely. Hence, it is a nicely orchestrated scam. I had chance to analyze the site for 7 days and everything was fine.

So I can't sue the seller? Is it because he lives in Sudan??
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Did you not check what is the traffic source?
 
Where was the traffic coming from? Was it from search? Was it direct traffic? What country were visitors from? What pages were they landing on?

All of these things are important. Without knowing anything else, it sounds like you were either getting bot traffic or shitty ppv traffic during the review period. If it was coming from search then the seller was likely either renting links or controlled all of the important links that were pointing to the site. Then once the review was up and funds approved he stopped those things.

Like I said, that sucks. But if any of those things were what was happening, you would have been clued in by investigating and answering the questions I asked above. That's what the review period is for and what due diligence is., not just saying "yep, traffic is flowing."

I don't know if you can sue him, I'm not a lawyer, but him being in Sudan would have nothing to do with it. You paid for a website, not the traffic to the website. If you could prove that he defrauded you, there might be something you could do, but I don't see how you're going to be able to prove that with what little information you have given us.
 
statelizard said:
Where was the traffic coming from? Was it from search? Was it direct traffic? What country were visitors from? What pages were they landing on?

All of these things are important. Without knowing anything else, it sounds like you were either getting bot traffic or shitty ppv traffic during the review period. If it was coming from search then the seller was likely either renting links or controlled all of the important links that were pointing to the site. Then once the review was up and funds approved he stopped those things.

Like I said, that sucks. But if any of those things were what was happening, you would have been clued in by investigating and answering the questions I asked above. That's what the review period is for and what due diligence is., not just saying "yep, traffic is flowing."

I don't know if you can sue him, I'm not a lawyer, but him being in Sudan would have nothing to do with it. You paid for a website, not the traffic to the website. If you could prove that he defrauded you, there might be something you could do, but I don't see how you're going to be able to prove that with what little information you have given us.
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The traffic were coming from google search and direct. Search terms are and the incoming traffic looks normal. It is not like I'm not rakinging and getting 1000 traffic from non existing rank.

Bounce rate looks normal for the niche, for each traffic source.

Country diversity looks natural. As well as state and cities. It is not like most coming from a certain country or city.

Page viewing and landing pages looks natural as well.

Checked browser, OS, javascript support, mobile stats and they look natural.
 
its pretty unusual for bot/cheap ppv traffic to convert legit for any length of time

edit: post above suggests it was probably 301 traffic from another domain and he's just changed the direction. Bad luck :)
 
If the other party lives in a country like Sudan, you're out of luck. In fact, whenever you deal internationally and the country's even remotely unstable...just don't bother.
 
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