Paid a scammer money via PayPal. What can I do?

1. There's absolutely no need to be embarrassed. This happens constantly, hundreds of times a day. The people you speak to at PayPal and other companies won't even notice or remember you it is so common. So nothing to worry about.

2. All you can do is constantly dispute it with PayPal or other relevant parties.

Good luck.

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Footnote: would probably achieve nothing, but you might want to notify the web site (or whatever) in question. Perhaps at least they will close that account.

Honestly, it seems like your best course of action is the police. Save everything you have from this man (literally everything), and turn it over to law enforcement. In general, it's possible to get information from photos, financial information, etc. Hopefully, this will be enough to track him down.

This tool is a tool for viewing metadata of images. If he's sent you any images, you can try downloading them and uploading them here in order to (potentially) get information about the device he was using and the location he used. Similarly, see if there's any information on his site profile that could give further information. However, you probably won't have access to the same resources and experience with this sort of intelligence gathering as law enforcement, so I strongly suggest that you turn to them, even if it's awkward or difficult.

Sorry that you had to go through this, and sorry on behalf of people here who think it's funny or that you deserve this.

TELL THE COPS

I cannot stress this enough. Tell your local Police Department, tell the FBI, tell your FBI equivalent if you're not in the US.

Having said that, there's generally not a lot they can do for you that your bank/paypal won't be able to. If you have dude's phone number/email that's okay, but there's a good chance they're burner phones and worthless emails. If you have his bank account though he's trackable and traceable and it really isn't that hard at all. The problem is it DOES take a lot of time. You're only out about $2,000.00. Now that's a lot of money for you and a lot of people, but it's unlikely they'll work up an investigation just on that. Local PD might, but every man-hour spent working through the pile of data to find your guy is one spent doing that instead of, say, arresting that drunk driver or abusive spouse or digging through the data on that guy who scammed granny out of $10,000.00 etc etc. The FBI CERTAINLY will not open a case based on your $2,000.00 loss, it's way below their minimum investigative threshold for things like this.

But what telling the cops WILL do is get that guys name and identifiers into a database. It'll get that name and those identifiers SEARCHED in said databases. If you tell the FBI it'll get THEM to run a search, and they have more and better databases. Maybe this isn't guy's first scam, or maybe that number you gave them is connected to 50 other similar complaints they never got bank details for, and now the total loss associated with the guy is $300,000.00. Suddenly they ARE interested and your info helps get dude arrested. Or maybe it's the first time they've heard of it so it gets filed away until the next person calls, and they have the key piece that gets it placed on the front-burner and gets the guy caught.

TL/DR Tell the cops because it helps build a database of scammers that will lead to more arrests and convictions for these sorts of scams overall, not because it'll necessarily help you personally right this second.

Years ago, I used to work at the company ("InfoStream Group" at the time) that owned SA, although I NEVER worked on any of their dating sites for my own moral & ethical reasons -- however, from having sat in the open-space office and heard of all the disaster and horror stories from that side of the office, I can at least tell you that you will probably not get willing support from the company if you need them to corroborate your case to the police or any one else. IMHO, the owner is a pimp and an absolute scum bag excuse of a human .. I believe he'll do more to defend the SD than you. As you have hopefully learned by now, the SD scene is a bad one with bad people (IMHO) and the people at the top of that crap pile are the worst ... IMHO. Please never get involved with the SD scene ever again.

Before going on ... I am not an attorney .. this is not legal advice:

The police wont help you much further than filing a report because its not their job to make a legal judgement so I have no idea why people are suggesting that. That's what courts are for. You would need to file in small claims court to get a judgement. I suggest you consider filing a claim both against the SD in whatever state he is in; the parent company of SA, which is currently Reflex Media, based in Nevada; and finally, Brandon Wade, the owner of the company. Since the amount in question is under $2000, I would imagine that it would be cheaper for Reflex Media and/or Brandon to just quickly settle with you rather than pay attorney fees in excess of the amount you are seeking. Note however that they will presumably want some sort of concession for the settlement, such as you signing agreement of some sort, which is designed to hide the details of the settlement or something of some nature that will not publicly harm their reputation.

You might also want to do some research and see if there is an attorney that has ever sued them before that is willing to do pro-bono work for you, at least in getting your case filed. Or perhaps an attorney that will take your case on a contingency basis -- although I doubt you'll be successful there.

On the other hand, I suggest that you brace yourself for the fact that you will never get your cash back and at some point you might have to just accept the loss and move on with life, for the sake of a healthy state of mind. In the meantime if you need something to do with any pent up anger, perhaps you can direct it to bringing to light your story so that other people can learn from your mistake and stay far away from the SD scene and the disgusting sub-human scumbags that exist therein.

This is a large-scale scam operation

This is not a local, inside-the-USA "sugar daddy" who loves you but is a jerk with money.

This is an international scam operation that is working scams against many Americans at the same time, and crossing them up against each other. The perpetrators are in Pakistan, Belarus, Yemen or some other location beyond the reach of US extradition. These people are professional and smart.

Your first $1000 came from another American, who was either conned into sending the money, or simply their bank account was hacked. This was reversed quickly because it was discovered. Scammers try this a lot, hoping to luck onto a bank account that isn't watched very closely, e.g. of a senior citizen.

The second $1900 was pretty much the same thing. This time they got lucky, and the money stayed around long enough to "con" you into wiring them $1850 of it. And you should not have done that because it violated banking and money-laundering laws (sending money because someone sent you money is how terror is financed).

You don't really have any recourse over the poor soul who sent you the $1900. They too are victims of a scam. Your only recourse is to reverse the $1850 PayPal payment, and you need to work very forcefully with PayPal to get this done. And you need to hurry.

It may be helpful to file a police report, but keep in mind your local Barney Fife isn't going to investigate an international swindling ring. It ain't gonna happen. The value of a police report is that lying on a police report for personal gain is a serious crime with huge consequences if caught. Which means companies like PayPal will take your claim more seriously if you swore a police report.

Lessons learned

Never, ever, ever send money on PayPal in "Friends and Family" mode, which is almost irreversible. (and I bet it said that, and I bet you ignored it).

• Only use "Purchases" mode which gives you Buyer Protection (reversibility).

• Likewise, NEVER send Zelle. In fact don't even sign up for it. It's the same problem; it's irreversible.

• Likewise, NEVER send Western Union. There is no reason to ever use that. Anyone asking you to is always a scammer (especially if it's a family member saying they are in trouble in a foreign country blah blah).

Never even tie PayPal to a bank account nor debit card. Use a credit card only with PayPal. This protects you better from these kinds of scams.

Never, ever, ever send money back to someone who sent you money. Especially never send the money back a different way than they sent you. Even if this didn’t happen, it would be money laundering. If someone "overpaid" you, ask your banker or PayPal how to internally cancel/reverse the entire transaction -- this is not a second transaction in the other direction, this is nullifying the transaction. And then have them send you the correct amount of money. Generally overpaying is always a scam.

People on"Sugar daddy" sites are often scammers because it's so easy for criminals to sit in Yemen and pretend to be someone who loves you, and the power of those emotions make it very easy for them to work confidence games.

Generally the idea of "something for nothing" should be viewed with distrust.

You have to tell your bank and have a police report. This will help with paypal reversing and you better do this ASAP.

You are going to have a really hard time convincing paypal and others to help you because this is a case of Morality vs Legality.

Legally you may have a stance but it is a thin one and falls flat. However you seem just as much part of the scammer's scam as him/her. You sent someone $1850 for an unknown reason. The only logical reason someone would send you $1900 back would be to launder the money which you are basically telling the cops you are an accomplice. There is certainly no legally justified reason someone sends you money and you send them less back.

From a moral point of view - and morality isn't part of laws but it sure is part of people enforcing the laws - you are also culpable. You felt that if you talked "nice" to someone, acted like a victim, sent them pictures and so on that they owed you something like $1900. Well guess what that person also did the same thing for you and they only wanted $1850. Call it a life lesson and if you lead the rest of your life with morals now saying "I will not try to use people for money", then the $1850 was well worth it.