I once had something similar happen when I purchased Prince of Qin off Ebay (10-15 years ago I think?). Package never arrived.
That is in a wholly different class than these scams where they're asking you to cash a check and wire the money back, nigerian prince, etc.
What the other poster ISN'T considering is that there are still large segments of the population that are old enough that they're just not internet savvy. It's just the nature of life.
But their point stands as is, it's not reasonable for younger generations to be falling for these scams.
Of course proving a persons state of mind is extremely difficult. As a consequence it’s unlikely that police or prosecutors are going to take an interest in fraud that only involves small sums of money (less than a few million $).
However proving that a contract is unfulfilled is pretty trivial, and generally cut-and-dry. But failure to fulfil a contract obviously isn’t a criminal offence, so your only option is to file a civil suite. Thankfully most countries have small claims courts that cheap and very accessible, but with limits on how much you can claim. Just because the amount of money you’ve lost is above the small claims court amount, doesn’t prevent you from suing of an amount within the purview of a small claims court.
Beyond that, use a credit card. If credit card networks have provided any value in this world, it’s in the form of generally consumer friendly chargeback processes. It’s in there interest to make sure that people feel safe using their credit cards to buy stuff, more purchases means more transaction fees for them.
> I just had my first kid and I was stressed
I often think back to when my nephew was tiny and imagine my brother trying to work a particular interface with one hand while holding a crying baby in the other.
That's crazy, but the same binary outcomes also exist in US law. Some states make very clear (to civil litigants' chagrin) that closing a sale with no intent to perform is a fraud; others haven't made that so clear; and, always, it's how you explain your situation to the gatekeeper that determines whether you might qualify for one side or the other.
That's what it's called in the UK anyway. I assume Italy has something equivalent.
https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/enforce-a-judg...
I was scammed about EUR 1500 some 7 years ago. It didn’t seem a scam: the price for an item was low but not too low, the identity of the seller I could verify. But the item ultimately didn’t arrive, and I didn’t know that for italian law it’s considered an “unfulfilled contract” rather than fraud, and requires a civil rather than a criminal case, which would turn out far too costly.
But the point is: I didn’t recognize some warnings because I just had my first kid and I was stressed, overworked and sleep deprived. Shit happens.