Not true. The money is still legally yours if you can prove that it's a mistake or you were deceived, and can be recovered via the legal system if the recipient does not refund it voluntarily. Scammers just move the money away via other, less traceable channels before that can happen.
As you say, scammers move money quickly, and they do so to avoid the money being refunded.
Aren't European bank accounts tied to real world identities?
It's not though? The money is still legally yours and can be recovered via the legal system. Only if it is moved out of Europe into less well regulated areas it becomes a problem.
This happens in every case though. If I give you cash and you take it to god knows where it can't be recovered either. If I give you money and let you leave with it then there is only so much any system can do.
Or am I wrongly informed? Because that's the knowledge I have from central european laws.
> Wer durch die Leistung eines anderen oder in sonstiger Weise auf dessen Kosten etwas ohne rechtlichen Grund erlangt, ist ihm zur Herausgabe verpflichtet. Diese Verpflichtung besteht auch dann, wenn der rechtliche Grund später wegfällt oder der mit einer Leistung nach dem Inhalt des Rechtsgeschäfts bezweckte Erfolg nicht eintritt.
> A person who obtains something as a result of the performance of another person or otherwise at his expense without legal grounds for doing so is under a duty to make restitution to him. This duty also exists if the legal grounds later lapse or if the result intended to be achieved by those efforts in accordance with the contents of the legal transaction does not occur.
Basically there is law that says for every money send should be a cause, reason that justifies sending. If there is no such reason, reciever is entitled to send them back.
But at least someone still has that money; it hasn't been destroyed.
What happened here is the equivalent of sticking notes of the wrong currency into a currency-exchanging ATM, and it shredded them. The system itself was a destructor of value. That doesn't happen in the regular old cash-cards-and-banking system.
Heh, funny you say that, because there was the submission about the danger of the 30-year fixed mortgage, and how the typical borrower is in fact, making an effective bet on interest rate derivatives!
See this thread that quotes that part: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29774806
Also at least with european banking, if you wringly send money to another account, it is also gone forever. A lot of scams regarding old people build up on this. We do not need to buy google play store vouchers like the americans tonget scammed.