My friend’s Facebook messenger messaged me to ask to buy Amazon e-gift card for her daughter’s birthday on behalf of her. I bough total $300 for her. Later I noticed it was a scam.

My friend's Facebook Messenger messaged me to buy Amazon $100 e-gift card for her daughters' birthday on behalf of her. It said she had some bank account problem and was unable to use her money for a couple of days.

She recently divorced and is having a hard time. She lost her job once. Not only that, but she has three children. (Our kids are long friends since kindergarten.) I purchased $100 e-gift card and emailed to her email address as it requested.

Both her daughter's name and my friend's email address were correct. Plus, it was exactly the childs birthday. So I believed the massage was definitely from her. (We usually text to each other to communicate other than calling.)

After I emailed $100 card to her, she asked me for another $200 Amazon e-gift card.

Because her daughter told her that $100 was not enough to buy what she wanted. I felt a little, it is something wrong. However, since her information was correct, and I thought that she might need some money for herself but was hesitated to ask. I thought she has got hard time financially having three kids under Covid-19 situation.

Although we haven't met for a long time as kids go to different college, she has been a helpful and thoughtful friend for me (our kids went to same schools from elementary school to high school.) So I purchased another $200 and emailed to her. After that, she asked me to buy another $250. Then I thought that it smelled very fishy. I called her finally.

We found out it was a scam. If it mentioned Facebook, I would realize it was a scam. However, to be careless, I didn't notice messenger could be also hacked. I lost $300.

I desperately would like to get my money back.

But I don't know how I could do.

I emailed Facebook customer support for help. I am also going to call them.