Scammed on craigslist, not sure what to do now..

[cmiller]

Last month I purchased a laptop from a guy who lives (supposedly) in Alpena, Michigan. I live in Saline, Michigan and have no reasonable mode of transporation, so I paid him to ship it to me. I made 2 payments of $300 using Greendot Moneypak. After the second transaction, which was made on July 22nd, he ceased contact with me. I gave a couple day's grace period to see if he had shipped it but hadn't thought to respond. I never received the computer. I immediately contacted Greendot's fraud division with all of the information I could give and I also sent a report to the FBI's IC3 division. Haven't gotten anything back from the FBI, but Greendot responded that they could see the withdrawals were made, see who made them, but they could not recover the funds. They told me the police could subpoena them for that information. I have everything from the whole situation saved up. Every bit of evidence. Emails back and forth, the phone number he sent a picture of the laptop to me from, the actual Moneypak cards and the receipts for their purchase, etc. I ALSO have another craigslist post that showed up several days after I was scammed. It shows a photo of the same laptop, I'm certain of it, just taken from a different angle. The person lives in Redford, Michigan. I do intend to contact the police, I'm just sort of curious what my chances are here, if any, of recovering my money OR, preferably, the laptop I rightfully paid for. I still intend to go to the police station, but with very limited transportation it's kind of on the whim of somebody who can. Any advice or suggested ways I could go about this would be much appreciated. Sorry for the long read and thank you so much for your time!

[Kimble]

...I also sent a report to the FBI's IC3 division. Haven't gotten anything back from the FBI

And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if you never do hear back from them. No federal prosecutor would accept a $600 computer scam case, and federal cases is all FBI does. It would be more appropriate to have notified your local police in addition to Greendot's fraud division. I can't speak to what your chances are of getting reimbursed on what you've lost, I don't know all the facts of this case, but contact your local police's detective division with the information you have (sooner is always better than later).

[mobrien316]

Call your local police department. If you have no way of getting to them, let them know and I am reasonably sure they will be able to make some sort of accomodation for you.

[mcsap]

NEVER , EVER buy anything on Craigslist that you havn't seen in person.

PERIOD.

Anything but a face to face sale is a scam.

[retdetsgt]

I wouldn't count on recovering much. You might be able to get him prosecuted, but maybe not even that. If you're going to buy on line use something like ebay that at least has a good track record. Also paypal does try to get you your money back. I never heard of that one you used and Craiglist makes no effort at all to check out sellers.