Topic: Do you buy and sell BTC in person? (Read 2310 times)

Yes I do small trades in this forum and localbitcoin just started but need to very careful to do the trade.

yes this is what I fear sells bitcoin personally and therefore I always sell to the exchanger. because my friend had experienced it, they get a scammer when selling bitcoin.

I am fortunute to have a Bitcoin ATM up the street from my house as well as a reputable Bitcoin exchange in the city I live in. I have not ever had to use localbitcoin.com, I am happy with the exchange and every time I use their services everything goes smoothly and easily.

some times if i realy realy need that damn bitcoin.

I used to sell in person until homeland security robbed me for a large amount of cash and bitcoins at gun point. The sad thing is I was just doing it as a hobby to support Bitcoin. I thought homeland security had more important things to do than bother someone promoting Bitcoin as a hobby. Sadly the threat of five years in prison has led me to no longer sell face to face.

I use to sell in person until someone tried to rob me at knife point. The sad thing is I limited myself to only 1 BTC sells at a time to avoid someone stealing large amount of coin. I thought at a lower amount, a person wouldn't bother trying to do something like that. Sadly that situation has led me to no longer sell face to face.

Localbitcoin is probably the best way to do in real life cash trades.

I think you have to look for information about buying and selling bitcoin, because today is very much a fraud, especially when heard about the money

I have used Mycelium local trader before and had fairly good luck. I would try it out and see if there are any active members around you 

No, I have never bought or sold bitcoins face to face with some other person. I guess I have to many options to buy online, at the market prices so I don't need to meet people face to face.

Here I don't count my friends to whom I have sent some bitcoins in the past. Technically, I haven't sold them any, I have just sent them some so they can get familiar with how bitcoin transactions work.

Yes, i do.
I sell in voucher actually but i got that vocer from sell my bitcoin first.

So i sell the voucher to trusted people on facebook group, i have a list.

I once sold btc to a FB friend and we had a meet up. All went fine and i think its more safe to transact face to face to avoid being scammes

Homeland Security can and does infiltrate Bitcoin organizations such as meetups and this web site.  So always keep it in mind that the people you are talking to at these meetups and here can be Homeland Security agents, confidential informants or cooperating witnesses.

Local meetups and this web site are very important for Bitcoin and this should not stop you from going and will not stop me as you can see:

http://www.meetup.com/Colorado-Bitcoin-Society/events/224676885/

However, be cognizant of this fact and be careful not to say anything that might be used against you.  This can be hard.

For example, a few years ago I saw an ad right here on bitcoin talk.  A guy from Darjeeling India was selling bulk Darjeeling tea for Bitcoins.  I love Darjeeling tea so I bought a large quantity.  Later, as I was going through the thousands of pages of "evidence" against me, including interviews with my friends, I found that one of my friends mentioned to Homeland Security that I bought this tea using Bitcoins.

It was entered into the evidence transcript like this:


This kind of pissed me off and I was really looking forward to bringing this up at trial - how they twisted this innocent purchase in their little pea brains to be an accusation against me.  

Anyway I was able to avoid the additional $100,000 that the trial would have cost me so that was good.

This is perfect, and is the ideal situation theoretically.  

But if he still advertises and does a "lot" of trading through localbitcoins to the general public then beware.  If he is arrested they can and probably will take over his localbitcoins account and use if for their own nefarious ends.  In my case I refused all plea deals until they dropped the charges because I was able to cash in my retirement accounts and was able to take out a second mortgage on my home in order to hire a great attorney.  Those who end up with a public defender will probably end up with a plea to a lesser charge and some amount of cooperation in order to avoid jail.  Depending on his lawyer and how his case goes he may have to fork over all his trading partners as part of his cooperation for the plea deal.  

At the current time I believe that as long as you are not doing anything illegal with your Bitcoins you probably will not get into any trouble for going to localbitcoins, finding a buyer or seller, and then meeting with them to sell or buy Bitcoins.

But then again I used to believe that I would not get into any trouble for advertising on localbitcoins.

What I was arrested for was "operating a money transmittal business without a license", a Federal felony with a maximum 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.  The entire case boiled down to one question:  was what I did using localbitcoins a business or was it trading for my own account?  So it is those that advertise and do lots of trades with the general public on localbitcoins that need to be concerned, generally not those that use the service to find traders for legal purposes.



But, as you know, I was wrong before.

That's why people typically meet in public places so it would be much harder for the scammer to do something like that.

I buy from a local trader I found on LBC, he lives pretty close to my house and so far I haven't had any trouble with this guy, the first couple of times I was really cautious and would tell him to meet at a local cafe and would wait till the transaction had atleast 1 confirmation but now he trusts me and I trust him so when I call him and tell him I need this much BTC, I usually buy worth $50-$100 depending on the requirement and he sends it right over and then I walk to his house or the meeting point and give him the money.

i have never sold any coins in person and probably never will. the only exception might be for family and close friends. but never ever to strangers.

I often buy and sell bitcoin exchange for the balance of
local banks. Some also exchange bitcoin them with a
variety of useful products in the online business world

Never in person, I tend to stick to online exchanges mainly for ease of use (I believe there is a local Bitcoin meetup but I haven't had the time to see what it's all about yet).

Something to consider in the future....

I believe that doing a "few small trades" through localbitcoins may be OK.  But if you live in the United States under marshal law (the patriot act) doing a lot of trading here can get you into trouble.  Read on.

Very well written article about my case, and civil asset forfeiture in general:

http://coinjournal.net/burt-wagner-localbitcoins-case-shows-danger-of-overbearing-government

I will be speaking:

http://www.meetup.com/Colorado-Bitcoin-Society/events/224676885/

Updated web sites:

http://www.burtw.com/

http://www.jmwagner.com/

Be careful out there.

It won't do any good, since they can legally lie to your face, but you can always ask the person you are trading with "Are you a homeland security agent or a cooperating witness or a confidential informant for any government agency?" and "Are you audio or video taping this perfectly legal person to person transaction for any reason?"  It might just put them off their game a bit.