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The keyword is "Lost" here. Unless his bank is willing to help, it probably describes his funds extremely well.
You have to remember this on the internet even more than IRL: "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is".
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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It happened to me too, but it was an AirBnB scam. I have always wondered how people can fall for obvious things like this, and that particular event taught me an important lesson, so here is the story:
Every year (money decides if every year), we try and go skiing for one week with the extended family and my BIL is in charge of finding and booking a cottage or hotel or whatever we can stay at (because I hate the AirBnB concept, so do not want to do it myself, and because my BIL and his wife have so many requirements to where they want to stay that it is better than they choose to avoid family war). He speaks only French, but can get by with German or English, or uses Google translate. Some years ago, we wanted to go to Austria. So he found out a nice cottage for 18 people (kids outnumber us !), asked us if OK, and told us that we had to book quickly because it would not be available for very long ; in the meantime, he had to leave for a long weekend where he was not easily reachable - bad network area. We confirmed and he tried booking before leaving, but failed, so he sent me the link to the AirBnB website, and could find a spot where he had network to call me on the saturday to tell me to try and book, even if we could barely communicate.
I navigated the AirBnB website, tried to book with my credit card, it failed several times, and I finally used the option to wire money (here the catch, no need to mention it).
Of course, the money was gone - we only noticed the scam after he was back a few days later. The website was an extremely well made fake of the real airbnb site, the domain name was something like booking.airbnb.com, I still have it somewhere on my computer ( I sniffed it because it remained online for a few days ). Some wordings were a bit strange, but my BIL was used to send me link of "google translated" websites, so it did not struck me more than that.
No need to say, I was both impressed and angry that I, the assumed "IT expert" in the family, could fall for a scam that actually raised all the red flags so obviously : external website, no paying possibility using the online platform, too attractive advertisement, bad wording in the website, etc...
So what I learned is : it is always a matter of context -> If I had been only a tad more experienced with how AirBnB works, or my BIL would have been more reachable, or if he did not used to send me bad translated webiste, or .. or ... or ... , it would not have worked. So these scams do not (or not only) work because some idiots are too naive and unable to spot them, it also works because in the millions of people who are approached, there will statistically be one constellation of events that makes it work.
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Rage wrote: told us that we had to book quickly because it would not be available for very long ; in the meantime, he had to leave for a long weekend where he was not easily reachable - bad network area.
Are you sure it was actually your BIL? That sounds like typical scammer tactics to me - impersonate someone you know, create a false sense of urgency, and claim that you can't contact the real person to check. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Yes, definitely - I think they managed to create the false sense of urgency by him, and he simply kind of transferred it to me because he was offline for a few days - Bad thing was, since I was not involved, and have never been in the past, in the booking procedure, I could not objectively question whether it was legit or not. As I wrote, this is a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime chain of events.
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I think your 'mistake' was not really your fault. You accepted information from someone you knew and trusted, so there was no real reason to do any extra checks.
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And that's why security in professional environments and in coding is based on "no trust". A company I worked for lost 5 millions on a scam this way - paid for product licenses and sent the wire payment to a different bank account set up by the scammers. Nobody ever double checked on different channels.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I hope the Finance Director got sacked.
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Those responsible for the sacking have been sacked.
I don't know, I was a conslutant and very well on my way out of that hellhole. Consider that they worked on safety critical components (either 22000 volts equipment or automotive stuff) and half of the workforce was alcoholic and drunk on the job, engineers included. Yikes.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Sounds like a fun place to work. 
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I quit my consultancy company because they stuck me there (coercing me to lie to their faces about my experience btw) and refused to move me even when it was obvious it wasn't going to work.
A year later they still aren't finding anyone that wants to work there, and the customer itself can't find a developer to hire since almost two years. The only one they roped in is a former employee of the company I am working for right now and he ran out the back door after barely 6 months.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Yeah, talk about a great trust anchor 
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What happened is a process weakness, not an error on your part. Stuff like this happens - I almost fell for one thanks to a typo from my wife and her lack of experience with the site.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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thanks for your story![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
diligent hands rule....
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My parent in law got caught by the microsoft hotline scam 3 years ago. I could jump in before he transferred the codes of the prepaid cards he bought (100€ worth).
Pity the [insert not KSS words here] had already crapped his HDDs, luckily they only deleted, not encrypted.
I could recover over 90% of the content, but I had to invest a lot of spare time during almost 2 weeks on it.
He is not a real tech safe person, but neither dumb. As Rage said, there are constellations in which even skilled people can get caught.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Define "huge amount of money". $100? $1000? $10,000? $100,000?
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more than that...
diligent hands rule....
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Woah!!!
Hard to imagine that anyone with the patience and skills to accumulate that much money would fall for the type of scam you describe.  
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I will share this post with my friend
diligent hands rule....
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I currently have a bank and credit card company on the ropes over a $1.50 parking charge in another country I didn't make and refuse to pay.
We're at the personal response to my snarky e-mail stage. The charge has been reversed, but I'm now holding their feet to the fire for the $.06 compounded interest.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: I'm now holding their feet to the fire for the $.06 compounded interest
I like that  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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Southmountain wrote: is there any way to get it back from spammer?
Instead of focusing on getting the money back, tell your friend to track down the spammer scammer. Then have someone break his legs.
[Edit]
No, I don't really condone that approach, but--I'm not kidding--I have heard actual police officers make that sort of recommendation for crimes that they know they'll never spend the resources to investigate.
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dandy72 wrote: Instead of focusing on getting the money back, tell your friend to track down the spammer scammer. Then have someone break his legs.
Breaking the scammer's legs is much too gentle a response; broken legs will usually heal eventually. An appropriate punishment IMO would be one that leaves a permanent mark on the perpetrator. I leave the details to the victims' imagination.
The real problem with this is that the Law in most jurisdictions tends to take a dim view of vigilante justice, no matter how justified.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: The real problem with this is that the Law in most jurisdictions tends to take a dim view of vigilante justice, no matter how justified.
See my edited post.
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Wordle 530 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Annoying, that penultimate miss
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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