Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.
I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number 8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.
I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.
Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount
As per your information, this is the profile link of the scammer -
https://localbitcoins.com/accounts/profile/Prateeketc/. It seems he has ID, Passport or Driver’s license verified with LocalBitcoins. You must have a copy of your police report with you as well. Provide it to the LocalBitcoins support and ask for scammer's ID and hand it over to police. If support doesn't cooperate, take screenshot and provide it to Police as well.
Do NOT back out from chasing these scammers.
Localbitcoin has no reason to provide details of someone who is verified there since everything happened is outside of the Localbitcoin platform.
You can raise a complaint to your cyber cell or by using this website
https://cybercrime.gov.in/Accept.aspx and obviously they will formward this case to your local police station and verify your FIR as well then they will start investigation.
But bitter truth is nothing is going to happen as soon as possible, it may take years or even forever to find this case.
You should not comment on something you have no idea about. If Police complaint is made and Court asks for this data LocalBitcoins.com has every reason to divulge details of this scammer, despite the fact that the trade did not take place on LocalBitcoins. Why? Becuase, if they're not compliant to a Court Order, Government of India may direct ISPs to block LocalBitcoins and start operation against those who trade over there. LocalBitcoins has no reason to lose a market as big as India to save a F**king scammer.