How do I confess to being an idiot?

[Croney]

Today I bought concert tickets from a person on a community FB page where I know the admins. and I've always thought of it as a safe place.

The seller was fake, I paid with Zelle so I won't be getting my money back, and the person deleted their FB page. The admins had had no reason to suspect a fake account although it was fairly new.

I was so savvy, I knew all the phishing tricks, I was wary of online transactions. But I got scammed.

So now I know I'm not as smart as I thought I was. It's very humbling.

[Skittles]

1. well....

"Today I bought concert tickets from a person on a community FB page " suffices

don't buy anything that way, no INDEED

[Croney]

4. It's not a public page, they had to be approved to be a member,

so I assumed they'd been vetted. Like I said, I'm an idiot and now I know it.

[Skittles]

5. I doubt that's very hard to do on FB

don't assume anything

live and learn

[Shermann]

2. I haven't used Zelle

Credit card via PayPal has served me well, although I recently got burned with that as well.

I've bought a lot of secondhand items over the years. The savings over buying everything through reputable companies has more than paid for the losses.

[Farmer-Rick]

3. Don't beat yourself up

All capitalism is is one con after another. Especially now that "deregulation" allows for most any scam like Mormon Pyramid schemes. So many scams come at us from so many directions that one or two are bound to trick us.

I once bought into a lose weight with one little pill scam. I really needed to lose weight fast and I was feeling really desperate. They caught me when I was feeling low. They promised 100% satisfaction but offered me only 50% back.

The scammers should feel ashamed not the victims.

[Croney]

6. Thank you! Your post makes me feel a little better.

[Skittles]

7. will you be filing a police report

absolutely this was a crime

[Croney]

8. My bank says to call them back on Monday after the charge has processed, they can't do anything

until then. I doubt there is any recourse. I'll never use Zelle again. With PayPal there is some protection I think.

[Skittles]

9. you need to report the scam too

https://www.usa.gov/stop-scams-frauds

[Croney]

10. Thank you.

[Brainstormy]

13. absolutely!

Facebook will need to hear about this too

[LakeArenal]

11. Back around 1936 my petite mom ordered an advertised breast augmentation product.

She was sent a rubber hand on a stick.

“Use vigorously three times a day.”

Edit to add: It didn’t work.

[ret5hd]

12. "Hi. My name is Croney and I am an idiot."

(all voices at once)
“Hi Cromley”
“Hi Cromwell”
“Hi Connie”
“Hi Croney”
etc etc etc

All are welcome at Idiots Anonymous.

[Croney]

14. Yes I'm sitting in that circle!

Lol

[onecaliberal]

15. Our bank has an online reporting scam system for Zelle. It's a go to for scammers.

[mzmolly]

16. Report to Zelle

https://www.zellepay.com/support/report-scam

Also contact your bank. There may be a way to recover funds that you haven't considered.

I'm sorry some people suck.

[Croney]

17. Thanks for the link, I'll report it.

[SilasSouleII]

25. If you paid through zelle

Then you have the payee as a contact. Go into zelle and send a payment request to the contact. In the memo box, state that this is their one and only chance for them before reporting to police cyber crimes.

[Croney]

29. I did send a request, but didn't think to add a message.

[mzmolly]

31. Good luck!

[BOSSHOG]

18. Hey Croney just say you support trump

That’ll do it. Don’t beat yourself up. Criminal minds are always working hard. Sometimes it’s hard to out maneuver them.

[electric_blue68]

19. I got scammed the night of either a Springsteen or Who concert...

Like 40-45 or years ago.

They held the tickets in a certain way. Oh well.

I saw both many more times so yay

[SCantiGOP]

22. I had a friend who bought football tix

South Carolina and Georgia were both in the top 10 a few years ago and USC had won three in a row, so the tickets were hot. A friend and his wife showed up at the stadium with $200 cash, intending to either buy tickets or watch the game on his iPad in the parking lot.
Someone offered him 2 seats for $100; he checked out where they were and saw they were great seats so he felt lucky to have found that deal.
It wasn’t until he walked up to the guy taking tickets at the gate and heard him say, “Sir, these tickets are for the Appalachian State game last week” that he knew he had been scammed.
When we saw him after the game, even though the Gamecocks had won, he was a dejected miserable drunk. At least he still had the other hundred in his pocket.

[electric_blue68]

32. No fun! Hate Tiix scammers. Yeah, at least he didn't lose the other 100$

[Joinfortmill]

20. So sorry. Hope karma gets them.

[aggiesal]

21. I use Stubhub, they guarantee your ticket. If you get swindled, they pay you back. ...

Also, there are now digital tickets.
Only one smartphone allowed to carry that ticket, but it's hard to transfer.

[IronLionZion]

23. Any chance Zelle will let you cancel the transfer?

There should be some provision there for fraud mediation since their bank knows who is on the receiving end.

[Croney]

26. No, it's done. When it's completed processing in about 3 days,

I can initiate a fraud report. It's frustrating that it can't be cancelled while it's processing. I'll follow up, but I'm considering it a lesson learned.

[LT Barclay]

24. I've been scammed a couple of times, once by what should have been considered a "legitimate" company

Mermaid manufacturing just in case anyone ever considers business with them (maybe the name should have been a give away). The other big one was a vacation club, which I didn't want, but the look on my wife's face. And sad thing is we could have taken a trip for what we paid.
But anyway, we all get caught. I've decided that getting scammed occasionally is just going to be part of life now.
Sorry your going to miss your concert. Did you source tickets elsewhere?

[Croney]

27. It was tickets for my granddaughter.

I think her dad is getting tickets from a reliable source. Smarter than I am.

[Generic Brad]

28. You are clearly not an idiot!

Scammers do that for a living and some are exceptionally good at it. You got pinched by a persuasive one. I actually think you’ve done us all a favor by reminding us all to keep our guard up.

[Croney]

30. Aw thanks!

[seaglass]

33. I spent an hour on the phone with a scammer (didn't realize he was a scammer) and it was re: Zelle.

I received a text msg from BofA fraud asking me if I made a transfer request through Zelle - I did not so I replied No. I have rcvd real fraud alerts via text from BofA so it seemed legit. Then "BofA" called me re the transfer (the scammer spoofed the BofA phone nbr, I checked). To make a long story shorter, I refused to take some steps the scammer wanted me to take and when he started to get nasty I finally realized he wasn't a real BofA customer service person.

Anyway, 2 things - BofA clued me in to what a fraud text phone number would look like and this wasn't it. Also would never use Zelle because it is difficult if scammed to get money back.

I have made so many dumb mistakes lately, shit happens - sorry this happened to you hope you get your money back.

[Akoto]

34. First thing you do is find someone who can't argue, like a dog or an infant...

And they blindly clicked on all associated payment buttons. Nobody will every suspect you of anything. It's the perfect alibi.

In seriousness, don't kick yourself over it. You're not stupid. Scammers are artists at being scum and people get tricked all the time. Unfortunately, it's very easy sometimes to be fooled. In your instance, if the admins were not suspicious of the account, that just makes it all the more difficult to discern the truth. You say it was a fairly new account but not behaving in a suspect way, which implies to me that it had been posting and socializing with the group. That builds credibility and makes them feel safer to deal with. Typically, that's true, but some scammers will go to lengths to make a dollar.

You're far from the only person among countless others being caught up in scams every day. Even big corporations with people trained to be secure in their communications have been tricked, hacked, you name it by people who were let in by deceived employees. So, rather than you being stupid, the other person is just a skilled con artist. I don't know about you, but that's not a trade I'd want to have attached to my name. Those who do are the lowest of the low, and everyone else is a victim, nothing worse.

I've glanced briefly at other reply topics and I see you're doing the right things for the moment. Hound Zelle about this. Contact your bank and initiate a chargeback as soon as possible, fraud being the obvious reason. Reach out to Facebook to explain the situation. The best thing you can do to get your money back and potentially even shut down this person (though that is less likely; they often use fake identities) is to not leave the involved authorities alone until they give your situation the appropriate level of attention.

Sorry that this happened to you, but scamming on the internet is a booming business. It doesn't make anyone who falls for it an idiot, particularly if the scammer takes the time to socialize with the community and build up a reputation which isn't suspect.

As an aside, I have only ever used Zelle with people I *really* know and trust. It's basically like a wire transfer/Western Union of the internet. Otherwise, it's Verified PayPal or bust, because you can take real and immediate action with them to stop a fraudster from running off with your cash. Stripe might also have features like this (it's Google's version of PayPal), I'm not sure.

[Croney]

35. Update: My bank is filing a claim.

I'm hopeful; we won't know for ten days.

I really appreciate every reply here. DU is a great place.