Police Say Case is Civil, Not Criminal

[isthelawwithme]

My question involves police conduct in the State of: Florida

First off, sorry if this is in the wrong topic, but I did file this case with the police.

I was buying services from someone online. The seller had great feedback and was what appeared to be a honest person. The seller was selling the service with "money back guarantee" or refund. Basically if she failed to deliver the service within 90 days she would refund the money. This started way back in September. All the sudden she was failing to deliver my orders and everyone else's orders. She then decided to make up a bunch of random excuses and told me 4 different times that I would receive a payment within the month.

Little did I know - The name she was using was a fake name, she was lying about a bunch of different things, she had scammed he over $8,000 at this point, and scammed a ton of other people (over 20 people, probably closer to 50 people). On top of that she had said in multiple emails she owed me the money and the money was coming. Of course it still hasn't come. I brought this to my local police as I had done research and found out who she really is and where she lives (happens to be a hour away). After about a month (which was Monday) I received a call from the detective for the case I had filed. I talked to the detective about the case and he said this was a civil issue and not a criminal issue so there was nothing he could do.

My question is - what makes this a civil issue? He (the detective) claimed "since she had done some of the work but didn't finish this makes it civil" - Is that really what makes this a civil case is the fact she did work for one of my payments and the never worked on the others? Also if intent is the issue how is using a fake name, private protecting all your domains as soon as the first "scam" complaint comes in (aka going into hide mode), stops responding to emails, won't send any money/refund, eventually deleted the email completely (as it was a example@mydomain.com type of email), she scams 20+ people for thousands of dollars... - how is that not intent to defraud?

I guess another question would be what can I do next?

Thanks for any help!

[indybail]

It could be matter of jurisdiction. If fraud is being done across state lines, perhaps that is beyond the reach of your local law enforcement. Perhaps the matter could be pursued by federal law enforcement (mail fraud and such).

Whether a case is being pursued criminally or not should not prevent you from taking civil action. Good luck.

[bam!]

If you can obtain her real information, file charges yourself and see if the states attorney will pursue charges.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If somebody promises to provide goods or perform services, and takes your money without the intention of actually providing those goods or services, if the police and prosecutor are satisfied that the bad intent can be proved they can proceed with a criminal charge.

If somebody promises to provide goods or services and makes the actual effort to do so, but due to subsequent issues (a shortage of materials, their overestimation of their skills, etc.) they are unable to complete the contract on time or perhaps at all, it is unlikely that criminal intent can be found or proved and the police and prosecutor are thus apt to tell you that you must seek relief through civil litigation.

The fact that somebody is using a "fake name", as in a name other than their own to conduct business, does not of itself prove fraudulent intent.

We might be able to get a better handle on this if you provide additional information about what happened, but I understand why you would not necessarily want to do that in an online forum.