My vendor just disappeared - took my money and ghosted — need advice

Attorney here (not your attorney, not legal advice, etc.). Here's the realistic breakdown: If you paid by credit card: - File a chargeback immediately. You have strong grounds (merchant fraud, goods not received) - Time limit is usually 120 days from transaction - Success rate is high for clear-cut cases like this If you paid by Zelle/Venmo/CashApp: - Unfortunately these are treated as cash transactions - Zelle has stated they do not cover payments for goods/services - You CAN file a fraud claim with your bank but success rate is very low - Contact the platform directly anyway — document everything If you paid by crypto: - The money is almost certainly gone - You can file a report but recovery is extremely unlikely For everyone: - File a report with the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov - File a report with your state Attorney General - File with the FBI's IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center) - If you know the vendor's real identity or location, small claims court is an option Realistically, for amounts under $500, the cost of legal action often exceeds the loss. Group action could change that math.

I did some digging. The domain peptideelite.com was registered through a privacy service, so the WHOIS data is hidden. However, their old website was cached by the Wayback Machine and I found some breadcrumbs: - Their "about" page mentioned being based in "Tampa, Florida" - Their terms of service PDF had metadata showing it was created by someone with the initials "J.R." - Their payment processor was a company that's been flagged before for processing payments for scam vendors I also found their original Reddit account that was promoting PeptideElite 6 months ago. The same account previously promoted TWO other vendor sites that also disappeared: "PremiumPeptideCo" (gone March 2025) and "ResearchChemDirect" (gone August 2025). This is a serial scammer running the same playbook repeatedly. Build trust for a few months, collect a wave of orders, vanish, rebrand.

holy crap. So this person has done this at least THREE times? That's organized fraud. Is there enough here to get law enforcement involved? I paid $340 via Zelle. My bank already told me there's nothing they can do. This is so frustrating.

I'm out $480. Two vials of tirz 30mg. Paid with Zelle because they offered a 10% discount for "direct payment." Classic tactic — incentivize non-reversible payment methods. I feel like an idiot. The 10% discount was the bait to get me off credit card. I should have recognized that red flag. For future reference everyone: any vendor that offers discounts specifically for Zelle/Venmo/crypto is a massive red flag. Legitimate businesses don't care how you pay — scammers specifically want non-reversible payments.