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Due to the lack of response and information let me be the first one to tell you all:
It will be 6 months to 1 year+ to have this person indicted for fraud. Police generally do not act on hybrid offences without sufficient evidence for fraud under $5000. The total tally of funds lost is close to $4k mark by my last estimates but my previous statement still stands, it takes 6+ months for someone to be criminally charged IF there is enough evidence.
Secondly, DO NOT EXPECT TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK FROM A CRIMINAL CHARGE. Police do NOT recover your funds. You should be contacting your financial institutions, banks, credit unions, and submitting an e-transfer SCAM DISPUTE.
Certain banks WILL collect funds lost for other financial institutions, others do not.
What does this mean?
Police hold the person criminally responsible. It is your duty to report to your FI to hold the scammer FINANCIALLY responsible.
If you have not reported the police report to your Bank by now you are delaying your chances of recovering your money.
Certain banks will NOT reimburse you for scam e-transfer a without a police report where you are going to hold them both criminally and civily responsible. The latter of which is going to be the case if your bank is not able to co-operate or recover your funds for you e.g. small claims court to sue.
And lastly, ASC is powerless to recover your money. These forums are not a form of insurance and should not be considered as such. This is just a self governed web-site for age verification and does not guarantee your money is safe. There is no middleman service, no disputes/chargebacks.
Deal with people who you know is responsible and have a positive reputation in the community.
WARNING:
Do not continue reading if you do not want to entertain conjecture and speculation.
The alleged scammer Brian Wong was a "med student" according to his ASC profile and he wears scrubs in his Facebook picture.
Here is what people should know:
People do NOT flunk out of med school without good reason. There is no other better way to say this than that once you get into med school, you are $100k+ in debt. If you suck at your studies they will make accommodations to tutor you and do everything they can to get a doctor. Otherwise they have someone whose life is essentially screwed without any marketable skills and lots of debt and no job to pay it back.
That being said, if this kind of activity is being conducted by this individual, it is reasonable to posit:
A. He's a liar
B. He messed up med school. HARD. And fled the country so he won't have to pay back his student medical loans. And knowing that, he scammed a bunch of people and fled to Thailand go start a new life.
Tl;dr, the dude is long gone and if you haven't filed a claim with your bank please assume your money is lost. The indictment and extradition of fraud may be possible but there's no guarantee of conviction either.
I feel sorry for every member who was affected especially to hinoobies and delta who I know personally. Hopefully this will be a learning lesson and reminder that this is a very special one-off case that is the worst case scenario. There are still lots of good people out there but we will definitely need more transparency to alert other members of potential scammers as soon as it is suspected.
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