Found on Craigslist a trailer for sale. I then communicated with email, to purchase it. It was supposedly in N. Dakota. They text me instructing me to send (2) $500 gift cards to supposedly Amazon shipping, which I did. Then trailer was on it's way but the morning it was to arrive at the storage yard they called and said California authorities wanted a tax to bring it in, so I needed to send another $500 gift card, which I purchased but then had reservations, and checked on gift cards I had already sent and found they had been cashed. So, I decided I had been had. Any way Amazon wouldn't tell me who cashed them in nor would cash the other card I hadn't used! I sent the story to FBI site for internet fraud.... it's been several months no word. Amazon doesn't feel complicit.
Robert
Irvine,#2Consumer Comment
Wed, September 13, 2017
Amazon has NOTHING to do with this and zero responsiblity, as you fell for a very old and very common scam.
There is a reason that Craigslist is also known as "Scams"list. There is a reason that at the top or bottom of every listing on CL warns you about scams and recomends to deal face-to-face.
If the gift cards were for "Amazon" Shipping, why couldn't you go through Amazon and pay for it like you do everything else on Amazon? Answer...Amazon had NOTHING to do with this. Amazon can't stop these type of scams after all it is not like these scammers are calling up Amazon and asking to use thier name, it is up to people to use COMMON SENSE.
Nothing the person told you is real. Not their name, their phone was a throw away cell phone paid for with cash or stolen credit card, their e-mail address is a free e-mail or again paid for with a stolen credit card, they are not even in the US. Oh and there never was a trailer.
This makes any sort of prosecution impossible. Well not impossible but crimes like this are extreamly low in priority and due to limited resources law enforcement agencies are going to spend their time on crimes that they have a better chance of solving.
Amazon(or any company) will not give you ANY information on who redeemed the cards without a Court Order, and even then they would put up a fight and you would have to have a very good reason.
The best you can do right now is file a police report, they will probably contact Amazon. Amazon MAY give them the IP Address of who redeemed it. The police then may trace the IP. But they will find it is untraceable or provable who did it
and put your case on the shelf going onto the next crime they actually have valid leads for.
Sorry to be blunt here but unless you are the one in a million, your money is gone and no one is going to be able to do anything to get your money back.