Second-Hand Trade Scam Chats, Records to Keep Before Reporting
If you sent money in a second-hand trade and the item never arrived, your chat with the other person is the first record to keep. This page covers how to organize chats and is not a guide to the reporting procedure itself.
Not legal advice. This page is general information. Whether a court admits or relies on a chat is for the court; convokeep does not promise admission or any outcome. Ask a qualified lawyer about your case. In Korea, for example, you can also ask the Korea Legal Aid Corporation (☎132).
What should I do first if I suspect a scam?
Do not delete or leave the chat. Leave the chat room, the other person's profile, the account number and the transfer records as they are. It is a good idea to export the chat before the other person deletes their account.
How do I keep the chat?
For KakaoTalk, export the chat as .txt and organize it into a date-ordered PDF. For other apps, do the same if they have an export. Keep screenshots of the listing page and the transfer records separately as supporting material.
Where do I report it?
Cybercrime reports are handled through the Korean National Police Agency cybercrime reporting system. We could not open that page directly, so check the reporting method there.
Will bringing a PDF get it recognized as a scam?
Whether it is recognized is for the investigating authorities and the court to decide. A PDF is only a means of making the chat easier to read and promises no outcome.
What about conversations I was not part of?
Records of a chat room you took part in and material obtained by secretly opening someone else's device are different. The latter carries separate risks, so talk to a lawyer first.
Privacy
Reading the file, building the PDF and calculating hashes all happen in your browser. No chat or attachment is uploaded and there is no account. See the privacy policy and the disclaimer.
Related guides
- Organizing investment scam chats
- How to submit KakaoTalk chats as evidence
- Make a PDF of a KakaoTalk chat
- KakaoTalk screenshot vs export vs PDF
Ready to try it?
Drop your exported .txt file on the convokeep app for a free preview. The first 3 pages are free (watermarked, no integrity page); saving the full PDF is a one-time paid feature. No chat or attachment is uploaded: the file is read in your browser. To check later that a file is unchanged, use the hash checker.
This document was generated locally in the user's browser; no content was uploaded.