I got my money back from a scammer by contacting his mom on Facebook (2016)
I was selling PHP based software around 2009. It wasn’t pirate proof in any way. I was charitable with it too... if anyone was disadvantaged or a student or similar I’d send them a free license. Some kid posed as a journalist for a review copy and then once he had it, started to aggressively distribute it to every leak/piracy site he possibly could.<p>Attempts to discuss it with him were futile. I was pissed. At the time I was a freelancer and so this was a huge portion of my income. I basically lived off the dopamine hits from each sale, not to mention the actual sale revenue via a PayPal debit card. The OG ones that were that weird blueish silver sparkle. Funds basically went directly from sales to paying bills and feeding myself.<p>So I used his personal info to track his location. Ended up finding his poor old grandmother who was his caretaker and barely spoke English. I tried to explain the situation to her and explain how unreasonable he was acting. She didn’t understand anything I said but I think the mere act of getting her involved scared him enough to undo everything he did. He was not happy I had figured that out.<p>Check mate kiddo.