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An old friend messaged me saying they were stranded 4 hours home and needed a cab to get home and it cost 80$ dollars.

He asked if I could send him $80 and he has $500 at home and will pay me back when he gets home.

I told him I only have 30$ and I need this paid by next day and can allow him to borrow for a day. I also mentioned it was really important as that’s all I have right now and I need it to buy food for my boyfriends kids.

He agreed and I sent him the money on Facebook. I kept messaging him to know if was able to get remaining $50 and reach home. There was no response.

Two days later he messages me saying he’s gonna return the money and to just be patient. I’ve asked him multiple times to update me and give me a time frame of when he was able to return me the money. He is already late and the least he could do is update me. He reads the messages and ignores me. I can see that he is active on Facebook and has logged in and out. I also had another friend message him just to see if he would reply and he did.

I need to be paid back and I no longer believe that he is going to pay me back at all. Is there anyway I can go about getting it back? What are me legal options? All the messages are through Facebook and I sent the money through Facebook. I have kept them all.

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    Impossible to even begin answering without knowing where you are (somewhere that uses some kind of dollars, obviously, but many countries do -- and in countries such as the US, "where" includes which state anyway). But realistically you've probably lost your money and your friend. In most places, no matter what you can prove, collecting $30 by legal force would cost you more than that amount ... Oct 15, 2018 at 1:01
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    $30 is an inexpensive lesson to learn that when you have more pressing needs for that money, you shouldn't be lending it.
    – Bob Baerker
    Oct 15, 2018 at 3:33

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Sorry to hear about this. It is possible that your friend’s Facebook account was hacked and the hacker scammed you. It is unlikely that you can get your money back.

If the taxi fare cost $80, then $30 wouldn’t have got them home. Unless you paid the taxi company direct, whoever you corresponded with had access to electronic banking of some sort. One would imagine that someone with $500 at home probably has access to $80 electronically themselves.

It is a pretty bad day when getting scammed by a stranger is the optimistic case, but I post this answer in the hope that it’s not your friend who scammed you. Before writing off the friendship, you might want to phone or visit your friend to check whether their Facebook account was hacked.

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