Consumer complaint received 2024-03-11
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — International money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: TransferWise Ltd (CA)

I hired a person on the app called " XXXX '' to help get us XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX tickets for our upcoming XXXX Trip because they were sold out on the site. I read on a few blogs and XXXX posts that others have used this XXXX  method to purchase these tickets so I thought it was an ok method to obtain them, as I trusted the sources I found online. I paid the freelancer {$150.00} for his service through the app and they uploaded a processing number, in which appeared valid. The order said it was completed on XXXX and the contact person asked for a payment of {$140.00} through Wise.com in order to get the tickets, which seemed normal at the time because I thought I just had the pay the person purchasing them for me and he assured me this was a secure method. He said that once I paid for the tickets, he just needed my email address and names for the tickets, along with the date of the exhibit for the museum and he would get them for me. He said I would receive a delivery email for the tickets in 1 day and then paper tickets as well. The next day, he messaged that the tickets were more expensive than his original quote. He told me to wire {$250.00} instead due to the price increase. When I asked if this transaction was valid, he said that I could verify the tickets before mailing them to me so everything seemed secure. He also asked me to switch communication to an app called XXXX to keep discussing this project further. Then a few days later he told me after he searched for the tickets, they were actually {$300.00} more than he quoted from the {$250.00} and I needed to send more money to get the tickets but kept assuring me that this was not a scam. 
After all of this, he then told me it was an additional {$50.00} per ticket ( x4 ) for final verification, and this was a new protocol and he apologized for being misleading with final price. I started to feel at this point I was being scammed but I was already so invested and this person spoke to me daily on the XXXX  app and lead me on. He even called me but I missed the call to discuss the extra {$50.00} each. I asked again if I was being scammed and of course he wasn't going to say yes so he reassured again that what he was asking for was normal. He even told me that if I didn't receive the tickets after this final {$200.00} payment, he would refund my money. This was the final moment that I felt confident to make the last payment on since I had his refund offer in writing. 
The very last request that I knew I was a victim of fraud was when he told me that the order was ready and I had to pay another {$250.00} to ship them from XXXX to LA, so I asked if I could provide a label to save on shipping since I get better rates. He refused to send me a physical address, he only gave me a general area to check and then the final request I had was to send me a picture of my tickets as the package contents and he sent me a bad stock image of a fake package. I asked for verification again and at this point he stopped replying to me. 

With this inquiry, I am trying to get my money back by disputing the charges with my credit card, bank and through wise.com and I would also like to stop this guy from scamming others. When I went to file the report on Wise.com ( which is shows you can submit one ), it does NOT go through and shows up as an error. There is no way to contact Wise.com and this makes me feel like Wise.com is also a scam. I am very frustrated. I have successfully filed an XXXX report for internat fraud and I have a case #.