Daughter 19 scammed out of car

Hi everyone my name is Adam

My daughter was scammed online by someone 1000 miles away using Facebook marketplace and an official eBay looking email and check out. Here’s what happened…. We are low income family with one car and a household of 5+ people (sometimes we take kids in). Everyone has a job and works opposite hours of each other, my wife is a night nurse that works 12hr shifts, my job is to drive everyone around to where they need to be and take care of our house. Because of gas prices it was hitting us very hard(spending about $250 a week) so bad sometimes that we’ve had to ask our kids for financial help to pay for gas and car repairs. My 19-year-old daughter decided to help out by working a lot of extra hours and save her money for over a year so she could get her very first car to help out. My daughter worked her butt off for more than a year to save money taking on a lot of extra hours. So much so sometimes she worked double shifts even when she didn’t feel well or just so exhausted but she still did it. On June 6 she decided that she could start looking to buy a car. On June 9th she found the car she wanted a 2010 Nissan Altima with 89,000 miles on it for $1200 located in Oklahoma City Oklahoma. My daughter was so excited she replied asking if the car was still available. She got a response back within an hour saying yes and that she(the seller) needed to sell her car as soon as possible because she is a medic in the military that is getting deployed overseas. The seller was in desperate need of selling her second car that was her husband‘s car and he had died in the military five 5 1/2 months ago. She really didn’t want to sell her husband’s car but she had to. My daughter immediately gave her condolences, and continued to talk with her. My daughter expressed her interest in the vehicle they agreed upon her sending the car to us for a five day hold on the car so we could get it inspected. The seller said to prevent fraud or scams on either side they would go through eBay check out process to sell the car. She told my daughter that she would be receiving an eBay phone call or email asking for her information like her name, telephone, and address. My daughter said okay and waited about an hour, she received an email that said eBay online services TM. When she showed me her email it looked 100% official from eBay down to the logo the font everything looked official. On that email it stated since she was 19 and didn’t have an eBay account that she would need to go to Walmart, Walgreens, CVS etc. and purchase 3 American Express, or vanilla pay, prepaid cards of $400 each. Then take a picture of front and back with receipt to prove that she bought them and they were active then reply to the email with those pictures attached. She did 30 minutes later, she got an email receipt that again looked 100% official eBay showing the confirmation of payment and that the order was complete. My daughter was so excited she was literally jumping up and down because she was going to be able to see and maybe get her first car. An hour later we get an email from what looked like an official eBay billing department stating that the car was worth more than the buying price and that special insurance would have to be paid to ship it. The email stated that she would have to pay $1200 in insurance that would be refunded on delivery of the car but they couldn’t ship the car until it was paid. My daughter came to me showing me everything, immediately I knew something was wrong. So I looked up and personally called eBay telling them what was going on. The lady from eBay billing department I talked said unfortunately it was a scam, that it was not an eBay account, billing or even an email from eBay she had received. The eBay representative continues to tell me that I immediately need to get on the phone to contact American Express and tell them I need to dispute the charges and let them know my daughter was scammed and I would need to make a police report then contact Facebook marketplace alert them to the scam as well. So I broke the news to my daughter that the whole thing was a scam and she probably never see her $1200 again. She instantly turned pale and burst into tears saying she worked so hard for over a year to save for her first car. I told her I would try to do whatever it takes to help get some of her money back and hopefully catch this person. She was so upset she cried herself asleep for the rest of the evening and night. After I told my daughter she was scammed I immediately got on the phone and contacted American Express told them what had happened to my daughter. I gave them the information about the cards used. The billing representative said it shows all three cards were used in Trumbull Connecticut 45 minutes after we bought the cards. That’s more than 1000 miles away from us at an Apple store. The American Express billing representative told me there was nothing they could do at the time because the charges were still pending, to try back in two days when the transaction was finalized. By then they could get the transaction numbers, the store number, the timestamp of them being used. The billing representative also told me that I would have to contact the Apple store in Trumbull Connecticut tell them what had happened and that we would be disputing the charges to those three cards. Before I called the Apple store I called my local police department made an incident report got a case number sent them all the information that I had on the entire thing, every email, text message , pictures, pictures or the American Express cards front and back the receipt the whole 10 yards through email to the Wichita Police Department. The police department told me when the case gets assigned to a detective they would let us know. I tried looking for a phone number for that Apple store and couldn’t find it. So I called the store in Oklahoma City Told them what was going on. I was placed on hold and transferred after a few minutes someone new answered I told them everything and was put on hold to be transferred to billing. After a while someone picked up at the billing department and had to tell them the whole situation. He said okay I have to transfer to that specific Apple store and put on hold to that store manager. At that point I’ve been on hold for about an hour. Finally the store manager in Trumbull Connecticut picked up and I went through the whole situation again. She was very nice and gave me a number to call that was a bigger official billing representative that took care of filing a report. so I tried that number and had to go through the automated system, I was finally transferred to a real person told them the whole situation. He said okay let me transferred you to someone in billing who can help so I was put on hold again. Someone finally picked up I had to go through explaining the whole situation again. He apologized for the situation said they will make incident report through his manager. I was placed on hold for 20 minutes then the store manager of Trumbull Connecticut picked up the phone and to BOTH of our surprise. The store manager made a hard sigh and said I’m going to be honest with you since no one else will. What they had been doing to me was very wrong. I asked what? She said this is a common tactic for Apple support to do with customers they refuse to help. She explained that Apple plays pass the caller to customers they they know will cause some problems with to much paperwork or money wise. They transfer you in circles so many times and you wait on hold so long you give up. She then asked how long today have you been in the process of trying to clear this up? I said 4hr 17min. She sighed again and apologized, she said unfortunately no one in the position you need is willing to help you and they are hoping you give up. I said what should I do then? She explained honestly there’s nothing. This was an elaborate scam and the scammer knows big companies like Apple won’t do any. Your daughters money is gone, and Apple is legally in the clear along with American Express, eBay, Facebook Marketplace. None of them have to do anything or will want to because it’s not in their best interests. I’m sorry to tell you so harshly but I would want to be told the truth if I were in your situation too. I said okay gave her the police report number and hung up. Now our only hope of anything happening is the detective that gets our case will be able to do some thing but even the police incident desk receptionist said it was almost impossible to recover the money and to catch this person. My daughter is out $1200 more than a years worth of hard work unable to buy her first car so I am reporting this to the media and whoever will listen to prevent this from happening to anyone especially kids again and hopefully get her a little of her money back to by her first car.