<prompt> Human: Hello everyone!Basically I dont have a job, and I sell accounts for online games to make some bucks every now and then.What happened was a guy approached me saying he can make me earn 50 a day if I help him buy gold from Goldsites, mostly runescape gold.He used STOLEN paypal accounts to give me money and I had to buy from the gold sellers. I didnt know the paypal accounts were stolen so I didnt think much about it because he was giving me money with every transaction.After couple hours the real owners of the accounts start to refund the payments, and I contacted one of them to understand whats going on and they said it wasnt authorized so they asked for the money back.Now im sititng here with my negative paypal balance and NO WAY to pay for the money he has stolen and that I have to give the victims back, I have 500 negative paypal balance, because of this, Paypal already took 200 out of my legit money that I earned selling accounts.Can someone please help me and give me some advice of what I should do? there is no way i can pay 500 and its not fair to pay for stolen money, I dont know what to do...Assistant: There is not much you can do. If you know who the scammer is, you could sue the scammer. But finding out that information may not be very easy, and even if you did, recovering your money would likely require a lawsuit. You chose to purchase an item and had a contractual agreement that he would compensate you. He used the other victims accounts to pay you. They have the right to dispute those payments and get their money back. This leaves you on the hook for the payments for all the gold you purchased. Your only real remedy is to sue the scammer for a breach of contract or Fraud claim, which is probably not worth the effort for 500. This is especially true if you dont know who he is and where he lives as the costs associated with getting this information, suing him, and serving him will likely exceed 500 by several fold. Unfortunately, it looks like you have to chalk this one up to one of lifes painful lessons. If you know who he is, file a police report wont do much. If you know where he can be found, consider suing him as you will have the means of serving him. If you dont have his name and address or other identifiable information, any further steps are probably not worth the time and money for 5000 let alone 500. Human: all i have is his skype and printscreens of our conversations :But I cant pay 500 i dont have the money, and thet already took 200 of my own money..its not my fault he used hacked accounts to do this, why do i have to pay :  <response>: You paid up front for the gold. He paid you with funds he is not authorized to pay with. His promise to pay is all you have. The funds you received were effectively stolen funds. Thus, you do not get to keep them. The items you purchased, you chose to pay for. These types of scams are not uncommon. The world is not always 100 fair. The legal system works in some situations and does not work as well in others. The problem here is the costs involved to track him down. Tracking him down will easily exceed 500 most likely several thousands of dollars to hire a private investigator, file a lawsuit, subpoena records, serve papers, etc. And even all of this wont guarantee you find him, or that you are able to recover after finding him. You made a bad financial decision. You lost money. In the real world you have to decide when you need to cut your losses. Recovery is impractical. If you fail to fund the PayPal account, PayPal will close your account, report your debt to credit bureaus, and not let you open a new one. PayPal also knows who you are and will have a much easier time suing you if they feel the need to they probably wont for 500. Your situation sucks. Scams like this using PayPal are not uncommon. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix. 