Online Minecraft scam: What is the best action to take when you are scammed online?

[Seeker]

Hello there! I hope you can help me with my problem. I'm an ordinary Australian worker who works hard for my hard-earned money. But I have this small addiction in online games. One day, I was talking to a guy on a gaming forum and we discussed a deal on his Minecraft account. He was from Canada and seemed legit. We became close so I never suspected him of anything. When the deal took place, I came online on Skype.We discussed about the deal and we talked about how it would go. He did not want to give me the Minecraft account without receiving payment from me first so I told him that I trust him and would pay the cost then he would follow on giving me the account that I paid for. He agreed. After I paid $215 to him through PayPal he just went offline in Skype and I never heard from him again. I was really depressed by that unfortunate event. Is there a legal action for my scenario of theft? Thank you in advance.

 

[winston wolf]

Unfortunately you wont find any legal remedy for this kind of scammer.
The real world equivalent is I bought a microwave oven of the back of a truck and when I got it home it had no guts in it.
I believe if you trade through steam there are intermediaries you can locate on the forums to help with these transactions.
I know people who have been scammed in the same way.
You can try PayPal, but I dont think it will help.
You can contact the mods on the forum and get him banned if you gave a good enough rep.

 

[HarrietJ]

This is a long shot, but you may be able to use this link > https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/security/buyer-protection-resolution

There is information about how to dispute a purchase. I am not sure if it applies to this situation though.

Goodluck!

 

[John R]

HarrietJ's suggestion to use PayPal's Dispute Resolution process is unlikely to assist because PayPal Buyer Protection doesn't cover virtual product purchases (that is, only purchases of physical products are eligible for coverage).

 

[Seeker]

Well I've tried Paypal's Dispute Resolution and have been contacting them through email and customer support but to no avail. I've found out that PayPal is one of the famous services that has a sucky customer support. Anyway thank you for the suggestion. Another thing is that we did not do the transaction through steam (one of worst moves that I have made) so that is not an option. I've spread out the user's name in the forum and apparently I was the only one who had experience the same. I guess I was just very unlucky. Also, he's never been active on the forum and even in Skype ever since. Although until this day I still message him in Skype just incase he's been making himself invisible. The experience was really terrible. It was my hard-earned cash that turned into ash.