Scam

Description

Yesterday I was scammed out of $365 from someone using a fraudulent PayPal email account. I made a sell and held up my end of the deal with shipping and was never paid. The buyer or whoever was behind the PayPal account told me there was a limitation on my account and that I had to buy $300 in gift cards and send them to the PayPal email I was corresponding to to take the limitation off of my account. I have never used PayPal for selling anything before so I wasn’t privy to how things went with this. The email kept saying that I had to send the money to receive a $200 covid relief payment. I expressed to the buyer that I wasn’t interested in the $200 I just wanted my money I was owed. He then got angry. I started noticing the emails were using the same verbiage as the buyer and got weary. I then received another email saying that o needed some certificate to have my funds released and the amount is $500. I refused to send the scammer the $500 and preceded to ask for my $300 and he told me the only way I could get it is by sending him $500. I was over it at this point. I’m sure he’s on OfferUp under a new name scamming someone else because when I told him I was taking this to a detective he said “good luck with that” and hasn’t replied since. I just want to know what my options are and to make others aware. If u are asked to ship something to Hawthorne, CA DONT SO IT it’s a scam! The person used a TextNow number so I’m not sure where they are or how to locate my money. I’m sure I won’t get it back so please beware. I can not speak to anyone from PayPal and OfferUp told me to make a police report then get back to them.