Topic: Is paxful legit? (Read 42563 times)

I have been using Paxful since July 2019. I had a guy teach me about how to do deals on amazon and earn bitcoin. I was so happy to learn because i have been wanting to earn bitcoin. As of today September 2019, I have lost over $2000 on Paxful. The first problem is that most people don't realize amazon has many rules that will block you from your account and lock up the gift cards you bought on Paxful. You will have no way of knowing if its because of a chargeback or something you bought on amazon that is a booby trap item like digital gift cards that will get you locked out of your account just for purchasing them….. even using a higher denomination card like a $500-$1000 dollar card will get your Amazon account locked and you money stolen by Amazon…even using your amazon gift cards to make purchases while traveling can lock up your funds or forgetting to turn off your VPN when making a purchase can result in your money being locked away from you by Amazon. The point is you can't even know who to blame and it can be a financial nightmare. Most scams are pretty obvious but I was scammed buying prepaid gift cards with BTC because if you don't spend the card right away the buyer can get your bitcoin payment and spend the card so you get nothing, and how can Paxful know who spent what so disputes are ignored by Paxful. I recently started trading through digital wallets which are an equal nightmare to gift cards. I was selling bitcoin for Google Pay and I received $500 USD to my Google Pay account from a trade with one of Paxful’s many scam artist and released the bitcoin and the scammer simply canceled the payment on google pay and my bitcoin is stolen. I can easily prove this but still nothing will be done by Paxful to retrieve your stolen bitcoin…And you can prove that this is happening all the time on Paxful.. but the attitude of Paxful is that you didn't do your due diligence and it's your fault for lack of experience and the only way to get better is to lose your money and learn how not to be scammed. See this is the thing at I think Paxful need to help its community with. Instead of letting these scams happen they could at least write some procedures to make it so an inexperienced trader can read about what to do to protect themselves beforehand to being scammed…This learning the hard way just seems malevolent. I mean how does anyone know that google pay can send money and then take it right back. Scammers know, so they target new traders all day long on paxful…scammers are so empowered by this. And honest sellers of bitcoin just keep getting screwed. Ray Youssef this seems to be the only article about the types of scams that go on all the time on Paxful but there are no real instructions on how to avoid them especially if your new to Paxful. I just think that it's a shame… and it has boldened and empowered scammers on Paxful to the point where it's getting out of hand. I would say 90% or more of the trades new vendors have to deal with are scams…I don't think honest traders stand a chance on Paxful. Especially with Amazon granting its self permission to steal the gift cards balances from its own customers and Amazon Gift Cards are the top cards trading on Paxful for bitcoin. These are large companies looting the little guy. Amazon is a very immoral company in how they have decided to profit in this way by bullying and stealing from the Paxful and bitcoin community and its no small amount that has been stolen by Amazon. Paxful I wish you could make traders aware of this and condemn Amazon for profiting from the theft of gift card balances from its customers. 

Hi everyone! Paxful is definitely legit! We have 4 offices across the globe and though we are similar to local bitcoins, we're not a reskin. You can check our stats here: https://coin.dance/volume/paxful

I saw a lot of the conversations here and I apologize our colleagues haven't been able to reply but I'm here to help however I can.  However, I won't be able to say much about account concerns as this is solely managed by the customer support team (for security reasons). Feel free to reach out to them via [email protected].

Thanks all!

Could you sell btc for bank transfer in paxful though?  Wait so its basically like localbitcoin then?  So if you receive paypal or any reversible method, then you are at risk?


Im curious but are there any services or sites that pay you out in bank transfer or paypal but its legit paypal for btc?  I know you could sell btc for bank transfer in coinbase etc but what are the other options?

Paxful is definitely legit and boasts the most payment methods out of all the platforms. Paxful is based in New York which has its own regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges.

Purchasing Bitcoin with a credit card or debit card on Paxful is extremely simple and only requires a 1% fee. The only similar competitor in terms of payment methods would be LocalBitcoins, however, they only serve Bitcoin buyers and sellers.

Overall, the Paxful exchange is one of the best and offers an exorbitant amount of options for those who are serious about buying Bitcoin.  Read review.

Some methods of payment include:

Cash in Person
Check
PayPal
ApplePay
American Express
Chase QuickPay
Venmo
Credit card
Debit card
Bank transfer
Nigeria bank transfer
Amazon gift card
Apple gift card

I bought my very first bitcoins using paxful and no issues so far

new seller i found and now support. check it out https://findbits.com/

looks legit from the start

PAXFUL is really really shady. i got lucky today cause i got my BTC back from seller sending me non working prepaid card.

Never want to use them again.

SCAM Network on Paxful. Classic SCAM: If you're seller, they're asking you to release bitcoin first. They don't want to pay you. If they do, chargeback will come on PayPal. Tired of Paxful. AVOID 

Thank you for warning. I'll better be aside of Paxful.

I used the site for a while with no problems. I felt secure since I was using Google Authenticator.

One day I decided to withdraw my coins. I copied and pasted my wallet address on their withdraw form, and started the withdrawal. The bitcoins were sent to a different address than the one I have pasted. I am sure that someone from their employees did it, unless the whole thing is a scam.

Do not use this platform. If u have to use it, always use Google Authenticator. And of course, when you withdraw your coins, make sure they are sent to correct address.

Paxful.com is a complete scam. I went to bed with a $388.26 worth of bitcoins in my paxful.com wallet but woke up with $193.24 in my wallet. Apparently a transaction has been done on my account without my knowledge. I contacted support and until this day-no response. I have had many people complain similar experiences with their wallets on paxful.com but i didn't believe it until it happened to me. There is also this thing where you can never win a dispute on paxful.com with the numerous crook sellers on paxful.com if you are a buyer.

Why you should never use Paxful.

I’ve been a vendor on Paxful for 8 months and today I decided never to use them again. I have always had issues with them that I tried to ignore believing that things will improve with time, but they just keep getting worse.

In summary Paxful made 3 things mistakes that makes me believe anyone in their right minds should avoid them.

1.   Paxful never paid me or any of its’ users their BCH, BTG or any of the forked coins, in fact I have proof Paxful claimed all of these coins for themselves and made millions out of it, if you have a Paxful wallet just put your wallet number on a BCH explorer or similar and see for yourself

2.   Scam networks had been operating on their web page for years and Paxful do support them for reasons I can only speculate. These networks have patterns and behavior that anyone can detect in a minute, why they never take them down is something I don’t get but I believe they are profiting from them

3.   It seems that Paxful disregards all the legislations that make sense such as KYC in order to facilitate the use of fraudulent credit cards, hacked PayPal accounts, and stolen gift cards etc. Whoever dares to report such activity to their biased moderators gets a very bad treatment if they are unlucky not to mass a group of vendors before reporting

In general this company seems to have no owners and is ran by a staff that have no clue what they are doing. They have a cool interface which I like but it’s nothing but a marketing scam and their new projects are covered by 1/100 of the funds they have stolen from their unsuspecting users.

More details and proof will follow.

lets bring this back alive, i want to start selling on paxful but im pretty worried about being forced to have .1 bitcoin in my account even if i want to start by selling only 100 dollars worth, some reviews ive read large balanced accounts getting suspended and their funds supposedly can be held up to one year without getting your .1 back, so whats everyones thoughts on this? is it safe?

i used once to buy btc but i see many bad reviews all around

READ BELOW AND MAKE YOUR DECISION ABOUT  paxful.COM
*****************STAY AWAY FROM paxful.COM******************************


Ray Youssef is the CEO of Paxful arrested in miami on weapons and drugs charges.


https://cointelegraph.com/news/paxful-exchange-ceo-and-cto-arrested-in-miami-on-weapons-and-drugs-charges



http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/12/15/456786212/for-sex-industry-bitcoin-steps-in-where-credit-cards-fear-to-tread



Ray Youssef is the CEO of Paxful Inc. in New York, a website that sells bitcoin. He says "the Backpage Effect" drove in a whole new clientele.

I used Paxful for my first ever BTC purchase last month.

It went really well, I had my BTC in my wallet with in 10 minutes.

Ive been trying to get in contact with paxful for 4 days! Unable to login.  Ive send multiple emails with not one reply!  I csnt get sms code for 2FA so im unable to login.  Im desperate.   Live chat is the slowest ive ever seen im my life.  Ive got two replies out of 100!   I answered all security questions to validate ownership of account.  They say its bee. ForwArded to admin, but 4 days and NOTHING!  Im desperate and beggining to panic.   Why will no one help remove 2FA ADMIN?? 500 plus trades with yall and i have hundreds of email notifications saved which i can provide.   My email is [email protected].  i will be here every day until this is resolved.

You are only the one defending them here, Paxful.com owner are scammer

Paxful.com is a scam. Trade on localbitcoins.com next time

Take a look on their scam site from this links

1) https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6jqlpp/stay_away_from_paxfulcom_the_moderators_are/

2) http://www.nairaland.com/3884643/www.paxful.com-fraud-scammer-site-founder

3) https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/paxfulcom-moderators-stealing-people-bitcoins-codedly-scam-and-fraud-site-1987998


They will ban the vendor, take all his coins and won't even resolve issue with the Card owner.  Scam both Vendor and Card seller




STAY AWAY FROM PAXFUL.COM PLEASE, THEY ARE DANGEROUS

I'm a Paxful trader. I haven't got any issues even the first time I joined. Paxful is awesome

I bought some of my bitcoins in paxful about 3 times and only buy with a trusted seller. They use an escrow.Pax is good in my experience. Try to sign up and start to trade there.

I checked out the latest Paxful's week volume charts and they made the best outcome last week, so I assume that claims didn't affect the business much. Of course, their personal reputations is ruined for awhile.

I have never used it personaly so don't have first hand experiences but I've read lot of rewies of this site and so far haven't found something with negative experiences.
This alleged criminal involvement of the Paxful owners is totaly different story and sure can affect their business in the future in negative way cause people might not trust them.

sure they are not a good model

Are you serious? If CEO of company is caught with drugs and weapons then of course it will affect the image of company itself.
I would rather not have people who like to run around with AR-15 while wearing masks and being stoned as CEO or bitcoin trading platform I use.

If you have a public profile like them it is only natural that they will be judged by their personal actions.

It's facile to judge people through their low personal actions, but honestly, those acts haven't affected their business in any way.

I am not sure if people here are aware of who are Paxful owners. They are not exactly pristine characters.
I would rather not use service after I find out that CEO And CTO of Paxful were arrested in Miami on weapons and drugs charges.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/paxful-exchange-ceo-and-cto-arrested-in-miami-on-weapons-and-drugs-charges

Yeah it is better to go in safety place than risking some of your money in paxful honestly i don't heard this site this is my first time to heard about this site.. and i think some reviews there is just a marketing strategy so that they can attract people to invest..

I use Paxful service and only do trading with trusted users and I never end up scammed.

Just use Localbitcoins for the security. Paxful has some legit reviews and some people saying that they are scam. I don't know, maybe they are egit or maybe they are not. Just take the safest steps possible.

i never use paxful to buy and selling bitcoin but with many bad experience from the other member, i will give suggestion don't use them and better use the other like localbitcoin which is recommended site for us to buying and selling bitcoin. and the best is you should find your friends in your city and you can buying and selling from that person to avoid the scam.

I've made a few trades already both buy and sell. Just stick buying or selling from users who are verified, have alot of past trades etc.

I never use paxful.com but my friend are using paxful for buy/sell bitcoin, they are operate like localbitcoins and my friend never complain or tell me if he got problem when trade at there.

Sorry for my bad english but want say about my paxfull experience
i open 2 trade on paxfull first i buy amazon gift card , seller send me rocketmail gift card with hold one day today  it was cancel i not receive my gift card
on paxfull seller have a lot of positive feedback HOW?
Second trade ask my phone number and say what he send sms for verified
i give phone number and on my phone arrive about 5 sms from GOOOGLE
i give him 3 sms code seller say it wrong but i am not blind code no have mistakes
another code i not say for seller and tell him going to hell
after my paxfuull acount logout and now when i try login again i see it

Your account has been temporarily locked down due to security issues - please contact support at your earliest disposal in order to regain access to it

 

I used it a couple times and it can be legit, depending on how you use it.  It is just like Craigslist, it is a place for buyers and sellers to get together.  They do have a built in escrow, which helps, but security is only as tight as you make it.  Read everything about the payment methods, the user that you are looking at and the site and make sure that you know what you are doing.  The exchange rates can be pretty high, but if you are moving Bitcoins and need it done fast, it can work in a pinch.  I use, when I do use Paxful, the serve2serve payment method.  This acts a lot like Paypal, but there is no way that a fund movement can be disputed. It is a pre-paid American Express card, with a few more perks.  You log into serve and send money to another user via their email address.  The TX is instant or very near instant and once the money is there it cannot be reverse, at least there is nothing in the immediate terms that says it.

1. Make sure that the user that you are trading with is online, orders will auto cancel in a short period of time.

2. Do not release the payment from escrow unless you have full control over the payment you receive.  That means, confirmed, in your account, not pending or anything else.  If you have no idea what the payment method means or how it is possible, skip it.  There are some crazy things in there, like "ATM to Bank of America international currency deposit", that is not one of them, but there are some that sound pretty out there.

3. No matter what website, what system, what user, what country, what ANYTHING.  If you cannot afford to lose money, DO NOT SEND IT.  My girlfriend, years back, tried to buy a car through eBay, was shifting via a scam somewhere else and sent someone the money via Western Union.  She survived the loss and the FBI got the money back years later, but she really needed a car at the time and ended up waiting on more money.  There are transactions that I do everyday through various websites that I would trust to the end of time, but I have also seen exchanges tumble and scam out, banks refuse funds during investigations, businesses that had perfect outward integrity and had operated without fail for tens of years fall apart.  If you and your family depend on a sum of money, in any currency, then never send it along to someone through the internet using a site that you do not personally own. 

Agree with most other posters above, this site looks like a scam.
Check out the review site paxfulreview.com.
There's no ads, just a review to help the community.
Bitcoin should be a better experience than this.

look over at my thread for what happened to me today. maybe paxful admin like to explain?

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/scumbags-paxfulcom-helping-scammers-to-get-away-please-advice-1535352


maybe lets start with why was i adviced to lie to paypal and file for a non-authorized transaction, instead of advicing the buyer to refund, or, enforcing your escrow to complete the trade?

sorry, i apologize. i wasn't advised. i was forced. forced to lie to paypal.

Then that would make you a bad service as your support does not even know what they are talking about.You cannot dispute something until after a few hours have pasted and the seller CANNOT cancel a trade.

Sorry, you got wrong information from our support then. On trade cancelling/dispute won by you you do get full amount back and you can verify the balance movement in your transaction ledger on Paxful.
We have alot of information about trade process and different scenarios on our FAQ page

I don't run a website,and if I was a competitor then I wouldn't resort to cheap tactics.The 1% fee does NOT get refunded if you are locked in a trade,your guy on support told me that.Im saying if you get LOCKED in a trade,as in the person does not cancel the trade and leaves you in there to wait for the auto-cancel.

What is scam exactly on Paxful? I am happy to clear all doubts.
We have been featured on NPR and Marketwatch and with our Pay with Paxful button to backpage.com was already paid over $5million in bitcoins so far.
Weekly over 1500 bitcoins is exchanged on Paxful between buyers and sellers. Proof here: https://paxful.com/developers#trades

I am not sure whether you are competitor trying to ditch us or honestly don't know how p2p bitcoin trading works, but let me try anyway.
What is the fee you are talking exactly about? When you are selling bitcoin, as a seller for a successful sale you pay to Paxful 1% trade fee. Say a buyer is buying from you 1 bitcoin, so into escrow goes 1.01 bitcoin from your wallet. On successful trade 1 bitcoin is moved to buyer's wallet and 0.01 is kept by Paxful. In case of trade cancelling you get back whole amount - 1.01 bitcoin. Indeed may be some cases when you are locked in a trade for an hour when buyer starts a trade with you and doesn't know what is going on since buyer is buying first time and is trying to figure out the system. But trade payment window times out and you get back all your coins. With time figuring out the platform and reducing number of stuck trades (coinlockers) you will gradually build your customer base of returning buyers and you could have a very profitable online bitcoin selling venture.

I can officially say my things about paxful

DO NOT DEPOSIT THERE,while you can easily buy bitcoin,deposit and withdraw it.They take a fee that they will not refund.As I tried to sell bitcoin on there,only to get locked into a trade for 1 and a half hours and was not refunded the fee.So I lost money and time.And everybody who you try to sell bitcoin to,even at a 1:1 rate will most likely lock you in a trade,which happened to me several times.Its better to use other websites.

I'm not trusting paxful so soon. Really looks like a scam, but I hope someone can prove me wrong.
I'd recommend depositing somewhere else, scams are so often nowadays, you can't trust everyone.

We are asking already months bitcoinity and bitcoincharts.com to include us. Our public trades API is here
https://paxful.com/developers#trades
You can get from there all past successful trades and also payment methods for each trade, so you know always which payment methods are now the hottest and most active.

This is the art of selling bitcoin online with premium which has it's risks if you sell for payment methods which can be charged back. Please look my previous posts where I have mentioned about chargebacks and what payments methods to use for the start that are not easily reversible.


We have a story where lady for backpage bought bitcoins from Coinbase and she found out that she eventually has to wait 4 days for her coins. She thought bitcoin is 1 big company and left us alot of 1 stars on bittrust because she thought we are the ones who make her wait for her coins 4 days. Also most reviews are left by haters, people who get scammed by sellers or who gets confused. If you check LBC bittrust rating, it's even worse =) Since there are frauds on both sides - sellers and buyers we are constantly improving our system and warning users of potential scams thus making bitcoin p2p trading safer.

We did choose a ready HTML canvas but it's heavily modified, I don't see anything bad if it does it's job. Also we are now focusing on new features such as widget/affiliate program (1 month away) and Paxful Checkout (3 months away).

Never use this service, but AFAIK, website reskin is risk to use, better to use localbitcoin itself and choose a trusted person to make a deal.

There is nothing wrong with the website because it is just a platform for buyer and seller to meet but i must advise that you should deal with people that have good reputations or you make use of their escrow.

Where do your stats come from that you claim to be the second biggest?

I have used it and it seems to be legit, but the only thing that the payment methods can be charged back but I believe this is a problem on LCB also and all major exchangers like this .

Thanks

Hello, Paxful admin here!

We launched Paxful in summer 2015 and have now grown into 2nd biggest p2p marketplace with over 1k bitcoins weekly volume.
If you have any questions or concerns, I'm happy to answer!

We have also active forum, great customer support and listen to our userbase and every feature request.

Never used it, don't know anyone personally who uses it and haven't heard anything good/bad about it so far, at-least not on this forum, so can't say. Its hard to tell these days about bitcoin exchanges as to which one is legit, which one isn't and which one decides to get hacked all of sudden.

Try it with small amounts, is all I can suggest.

there are about 26 reviews, read first and then make your own opinion, although i must say, scam is the firt thing that comes to mind http://bittrust.org/paxful

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tips: 156dych5YUcEd1DHZ5TueAtcgtSymEVhkG

A friend of mine told me about paxful,it seems like a locabitcoin reskin.I haven't been able to find any vouches that it works,does anyone have any experience with paxful?