The whole thing is not as clear-cut as you are portraying it here. Furthermore, not even the best-equipped amateur astronomer can verify it. And also:
"Therefore either all retroreflectors have degraded such that their return signals fit to the scattered return from the lunar soil or the measurements were indeed taken to the lunar surface only."
"Therefore either all retroreflectors have degraded such that their return signals fit to the scattered return from the lunar soil or the measurements were indeed taken to the lunar surface only."
https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.05863