It's great that some people are getting their refund back.
I sent money a year ago, I wonder if i could get my money back?
It was 21k
Any advice anyone?
My guess is the amount owed makes this a tough one. You can put some pressure on Jimmy by doing the following.
Get all of the documents regarding the transaction together.
Go to Illinois's Attorney General page and download their complaint form. Fill it out and mail with all documents, back to them. Follow up.
Go to BBB and do the same.
Then take the reports and mail to the police dept. in the city in which he resides. See if you can write a police report.
Then post to rip-off report, scam.com so others don't get scammed.
Then file a complaint with eBay. If there are other problems with him, this may put him over the top. I once got a seller perm. banned because of an issue I had with him outside of eBay but I knew some things and this got him closed down.
There are some other more nefarious tactics. I won't post here but if you want to know them you can PM me. I save these tricks for this type of sit.
None of the above may get your money back. But they will put some heat under Jimmy's seat. I have personally put Jimmy in the category of scammer/criminal. No one, under almost any circumstance, conducts business like this or accepts money as large as yours, and then fails to deliver or return the funds. If this is truly the case, as you say, then he is a criminal and should be treated as such.
The only problem I have is why did you take so long to take action? Was Jimmy dragging you along?