Ask HN: I think I've been scammed - what now?
Our product didn't initially go viral, and I mentioned another idea to my cofounder, who thought it was interesting as well. We ended up working on this second project (wikizu.com), while shelving the first project for the time being, identifying a few errors to the concept and presentation. I paid for that, plus some sort of marketing campaign that I knew far too little about.
This was back in November, right before Thanksgiving. From then until now, I have been asking him about the status of Wikizu and he has given me a variety of excuses. I believed them until a few friends started questioning the situation. Today I confronted him about it and he dodged every question I posed.
I suggested he send back the advertising money (which I sent back in November, thinking we were launching very shortly) to prove my friends wrong. He concluded I was being "annoying", said he had work to do, and mentioned contacting a lawyer a few times. I can upload the chat conversation somewhere if anyone wants to read it, but this is pretty much what happened.
I understand that I was horribly naive, and blindly trusted what I was told without really understanding what was going on. I sent money to someone I didn't know simply because we had long IM conversations and he seemed to know what he was talking about. He even made the sites functional with facebook, which I thought meant for sure there was no reason to question him.
I don't know what to do at this point. I'm out a good chunk of change, but I'm also frustrated that I've spent six months waiting around instead of implementing some of my ideas. I even posted on here earlier today asking about doing another project with someone, since I was tired of waiting around.
The alleged scammer posts on HN, and to my knowledge has a minimum of two accounts, one that he has posted as recently as this week on. A google search including his name and "scammer" brings up results, as does one with a pseudonym he uses for various sites. I'm not sure if I should out this information at this time. Any help would be appreciated.