Topic: P2P Scams : Where does the government stand (Read 1043 times)

What I am saying is that users should avoid P2P exchanges, because all data about these exchanges can be transferred to the tax authorities and all participants can receive large fines.
In my country, for example, I do not exchange money on the exchange, but use the services of private exchangers. Here prices are 1-2 percent lower, but it is more reliable.

The way I see it is scammers are everywhere and you can't do anything when you get scammed. The options that we have is to not go for those merchants on a P2P exchange that doesn't have good reputation. These scams only happen when a user goes for a lucrative deal and such deals results in scams.

What you are facing @OP might have come from India. There are so many cases with P2P scams. What as a community we are doing is to focus on reputated merchants otherwise we as a community use local exchange. If you have local exchange in your country then start using them.
 

There is a difference between UAE and other countries where the crypto is illegal. Dubai is one of the crypto hubs and you can buy and sell cryptocurrency with ease and you do not need to depend only on the P2P online platforms.

United Arab Emirates and Cryptocurrency

In those countries, where crypto transactions are not legal, people use the P2P exchanges to buy and sell crypto as in this way, the government does not know that they are dealing with crypto. That's the only option for those people and if you say that they should stop the P2P exchanges, then it means that they should quit crypto and wait for their country's conditions to become favourable for their crypto adoption.

This will go on forever.
P2P exchangers carry great risks for their clients.
The very first thing to avoid is P2P exchanges on exchanges if cryptocurrency transactions are illegal in your country or you do not file documents with the tax authorities.
The exchange itself will transfer all data about your exchanges to the tax office.

The owner of the P2P exchange can be caught, and he will transfer all data about the exchanges to the tax authorities or other organizations that are engaged in financial monitoring.
In the UAE, you can exchange cryptocurrency for cash without any problems.

That is the worst case Scenario as the scammer scam the people and the people can't take legal action against the scammers as the government instead of going after the scammer, will first make a FIR against the complainant who admits that he had a P2P scam because he was dealing in crypto.

A few days ago someone reported in a crypto group as how the Fedreal Investigation agency is after a person who did a P2P trade, maybe because the merchant with whom he dealt with, made a complianist againsit him on an online portal for dealing with crypto (while he himself runing a merchant account on the P2P section of the exchange).




https://www.facebook.com/groups/CryptoCurrencyGlobal/posts/2663769880440124/

Unfortunately, scammers are very difficult to catch because they do not violate the laws of the countries in which they live. And what they do in other countries is very difficult to prove, but for the victim in all cases, getting the stolen money back will be a big problem. Because when the fraudster is caught, this money will be spent.

I have to discuss this in three scenarios.
Scenario 1
Your country did not legalize bitcoin and has also laws to punish bitcoin users. This is just like your own country. In this scenario, the scammers have free hands to operate and it is assumed only those breaking the law by using bitcoin would be scammed.

Scenario 2
Your country doesn't legalize cryptocurrency and at the same time does have anything against the citizens using the cryptocurrency.
In this case, the scammers would be tried as in the normal case of scam.

Scenario 3
Your country making bitcoin a legal tender. In this case, the scammers should be in a mess if caught.

Yes, if it is scenario 1.

I wouldn't put my hopes on it too much. If the amount of replenishment of an exchange account through P2P transfers is more than 10 thousand dollars, then the exchange may require you to have a whole list of tax documents on income, so do not think that the exchange will not have questions for you. Centralized exchanges are very bad partners and can block your assets at any time.

Yes, the people involved in P2P have to defend themselves and take every precautionary measure to avoid the scam from the scammers. We should know that we are dealing with P2P with our own risk, sometimes an exchange may help if the deal is not closed but we should not expect any help from the governments (in places where the crypto is not legal).

Better read and understand all the policies regarding P2P and watch a few AMAs from Binance, before starting trading on P2P.

Yes, I think that banks in many countries will be against it if their users send and receive money from crypto exchanges to their bank accounts, which are not intended for this.
Therefore, exchanges do not want to get involved with this and they only control cryptocurrencies. And when you control only 50% of the exchange, scammers can always deceive users.

I don't think that there is any change in the P2P system for binance, or maybe it is related to the countries where the binance allows direct deposit of fiat money into binance and also transfer the money from biannce to the bank account directly.

In my country, where we are not allowed to use our bank accounts directly with binance, nothnig has changed for us. We only have the P2P to buy and sell bitcoins or the USDT.  So the chances of scams still exisits specailly for the new users who accept to deal / chat outside of the binance, while the binance P2P order is still in progress.

I don't think it will be easy to identify scammers because transfers can be managed outside the Binance system and Binance is only used to make transfers. In a recent incident, scammers from a foreign country were able to convince some people to send them money for the purpose of investment and that they would make profits. Then they contacted traders on Binance to accept money in the victims’ local currency and send them crypto on Binance in return. Fraudsters were able to exploit Binance P2P services without harming Binance customers. Unfortunately, when the victims filed a complaint with the authorities after it was proven to them that they had fallen victim to a scam, they mentioned the merchants who gave them money in the local currency and who found themselves facing a lot of trouble. I do not think that Binance can do anything about this, especially since no proof can be provided.

Has Binance P2P changed its rules and now the buyer needs to make a bank transfer of dollars or euros to the exchange account?
In this case, it is very difficult to commit fraud, but it will also be difficult for users to work with the crypto exchange.
Not all banks like it when users frequently transfer and receive money from crypto exchanges and block accounts for verification.

Yeah, the amount of reward is laughable but the disadvantage for scammer that will be report was their funds will be seize despite they are using different identity. You will need to escrow your balance to Binance once you create a buy&sell order on Binance P2P.

Reporting the scammer while he/she has an existing order will surely trap his balance and seize it by the exchange. I think this is what Binance thinking on this program but I really agree that reward is too low for the trouble.

What is this $5 reward anti-scam program? This makes me laugh.
Fraudsters work on Binance using other people’s personal data, and to combat fraud, you need to verify your identity every week using a video call. In the meantime, as long as it remains possible to work on crypto exchanges using someone else’s documents, fraud will continue.

This is good timing about this inquiry since Binance already launch program dedicated o fight this scammers on P2P. They are now giving reward to every P2P scammer that you spotted by reporting them on this form https://www.binance.com/en/survey/728ee8020925499ea62224c4a7cd3d8d.

You can have extra tokens by reporting this scammers! I believe this will reduce scammers since everyone will be eager to report them while they have funds that can be seized by Binance once report is proven.

The program is called Anti-Scam Ninja Program

Any Internet fraud is very poorly investigated in many countries. If the criminal makes a mistake, he will be caught several years later, but the chance of returning the stolen money will be zero.
Even if you are an experienced user, scammers will not be able to deceive you, but it is very easy to get your account blocked.

I gave a simple example. You sold your bitcoins on the exchange via P2P and received money on your card. A year later, the owner of the bank card (drop) sues you and asks you to return the erroneous transfer. And you will lose the trial because you cannot prove in any way that you sent the bitcoins to the drop. In Russia this period is 3 years.

But all this does not happen in reality. Most government does not support cryptocurrencies. So they won't help you out in case you were scammed through P2P.

Also the scammers at P2P are clever enough that they make the other party close the deal without getting the payment. Once you close the deal, the escrow is released and then even binance can't help you.

Yeah, it could be one hint that the person or buyer is not a scammer, but still though you need to be very cautious. And it's good that exchange have recorded our transactions, and one thing I do is to look at it and see who I might have been transacting in the past.

And then I will try to look for that person if he is available during the time that I needed a quick exchange. Otherwise I will look for others who have a good rating and of course his exchange rate is as competitive as others and maybe try just small amount and see how it goes and rate him base on my experience.

You will understand how P2P exchanges work. The exchange only blocks cryptocurrencies, but it does not control money transfers. Even people on P2P sites with a lot of reviews use other people's bank accounts for payments.
And as soon as fraud occurs in this payment chain, many bank accounts that were linked by transfers may be blocked. And then the bank or police officers will find out the reasons for such payments.

Yeah sure, We can't blame to the technology, but we have to strict and alert from the scammers. Because scammers are everywhere in the word. P2P is the most powerful things where we can use the money to deposit are withdrawn. But there is also some technical things to understand that how we can alert from scammers. Please choose the best person with many rating and positive reviews, so you can be safe in this process too.

Fraudsters may have dozens of accounts on exchanges, and some in preparation, that are honestly making exchanges and gaining positive reviews.
It is impossible to track all scammers, but exchanges should be made only with verified participants who have been doing this for more than a year, but their prices will be lower than those of scammers.

Yes, that's what I did, I put a warning in our local board so that no one can fall for it. I even try to track that account after he try to scam me and the exchange favor my side that no money was sent to my wallet, hence it was really a scam attempt.

But it's going to be a long battle for us, scammers will try to create a new account after I exposed one of them. But the battle will continue though, if I encounter a new one, definitely I will give another warning.

There is no need to go to the bank office. The courier brings you a bank card and checks all the documents, or you can go through verification with the bank's partners. And there is also a single biometric system, if you are registered in it, then you can verify yourself in any bank online. You don’t even need a bank card to withdraw money, the ATM system recognizes you by your voice and face.This is not the case in the most developed countries

Warn everyone you can.

Even if the account opened online have less deposit/ withdrawals limits, yet the scammers are happy scamming to that limit and getting the free money. Give them any loopholes and they are ready to exploit them.


The banking system is not lenient, they try to give facilities to their customers that they can open accounts and do all the transactions while staying at the comfort of their homes. However, they should introduce more strict measures like thumb verification and facial verifications and due to the advancement of the technology, these things can be done online.

I remember some banks allow users to open a bank account online if the documents are enough but they will let the account under high restrictions such as low deposit and withdrawal limits, no internet banking or at least can't able to wire over certain limits until the account holder provides all the documents by the bank office.

I guess the banking system becomes more lenient which is one of the reasons why they started to fail at some point.

Yes, same here and that is exactly my point mate. This criminals will go to this lengths to get all the information and this are going to be used and will be at their disposal whenever they created accounts in exchange, maybe hire someone as well to take selfies and that's it.

That's why even here in the Philippines, there are a lot of P2P scams attempts already and for sure there are a lot of victims. But governments and police can't do anything about it even if you get all the information from exchanges because they are all false.

And how do you think these credentials get into the darknet
It is in Europe that you need to come to the bank to open an account for you, and in Russia you can submit an application through the bank's application or the bank's website and pick up a bank card at any office of the bank's partners by proxy. In this respect, Russia is much more progressive than other countries. And even if you are not a citizen of the country, you can easily open a bank account.

But it is not possible to open an account without the actual presence of an individual or a mandatory verification process so the bank employee also has a play in this scam. On the other hand, we can find the stolen bank account with all the credentials on the darknet from $25 to $150 depending on the balance of the account which is mostly used by these p2p scammers that is why it is important to not accept payments from freshly created accounts on p2p platforms.

I will write you an example of how scammers work in Russia for the free issuance of bank cards.

In popular job search resources, there are vacancies for sellers, laborers, loaders with a very high salary. These ads are written for not the most legally literate people.
After the call, the candidate is invited to the office with a mandatory package of documents: passport, Taxpayer Identification Numbers, personal account number in the pension insurance system. And there is nothing suspicious here, this is a standard package of documents when applying for a job. The candidate signs the questionnaire, the application and the power of attorney for the company to make the employee a salary account in the bank. And here, too, there is nothing suspicious and illegal.

But no one will be hired, scammers use this data to issue bank cards for illegal exchange transactions. And then many times they will sell the personal data of the victims.

It's different though when we talk about banks as they are intermediary. And obviously that's why people are doing P2P to avoid banks and other middleman in people. So take away them for the equation, it's you against the person on the other side of the deal and of course the exchange that will facilitate it.

As here in our country, there are some friendly banks to crypto and I will say that we are lucky.

Maybe the scammer can go and put it in a bank if that is your point. Unfortunately, there are ways that people can create bank accounts using false identification. So they can get away from it even if you as a victim report it to the authority.

I will never believe that if there is a demand for cryptocurrency exchange in a country, then there are no exchange options other than p2p.
The exchange transmits data on exchanges to the tax authorities, and even if you use a friend's account, your bank card data is stored in the logs.
And tax control is being strengthened in many countries. What is the risk of paying taxes on your exchanges later if the data gets into the tax office?

I don't see anything wrong with a centralized exchange if we don't use it as a place to keep our coins. Central exchange is good when we want to sell our coins like swapping and doing staking also. And also centralized exchange is not good for us to use it without precautions because anything can happen that can make any exchange to crash out with out even alerting the investors that are using the exchange for long. Many centralized exchange have crashout so we need to  learn from our mistakes.

Well, P2P is one of the best and quickest way to convert your bitcoins to fiat and vice versa and it is the only option in parts of the world where the bitcoin is not legal.

To minimize the risk, one can deposit a small amount at the centralized exchange, perform a P2P transaction with limited funds only (many small transactions instead of one big transactions) and then (in case they have bought bitcoin), get the bitcoin withdrawn from the centralized exchange to the personal wallet. If one has a large amount to do the conversion, they should follow the process over and over again without exposing too much money at a single time.

Risk number 1 is P2P exchange, risk number 2 is to hold money on a centralized exchange, risk number 3 is the use of bank cards for exchange.
With such risks, the probability of getting problems is very high and you need to distance yourself from these risks as much as possible.

If you pay attention to the Binance platform, in the p2p section, there is always a warning aboit fraud and not releasing your coins until you confirm your fiat payment. And again, if you check the adverts section of the Binance platform, you will understand that there suspended or restricted accounts which I assume are accounts that violated binance terms or accounts that involved in scams.
So, it means that there are different kinds of scams. As long as the cryptocurrency industry is concerned, there must exist scam, that is the reason everyone is supposed to be careful.

I don't think you understand how the scam works. A P2P exchange can only block cryptocurrencies, but it has nothing to do with fiat transactions.

Example. The scammer registers on the exchange using someone else's documents and makes several honest P2P exchanges.
Then he is looking for a client to buy bitcoin for 1000 dollars in telegrams.
When the client is found, the scammer makes the same request on the exchange and gives the victim the details for transferring a verified trader. The victim transfers money, the fraudster on the exchange receives bitcoins and quickly withdraws them from the exchange.
Then the victim and the trusted trader sort things out in the police or in court.

Above all that is being discussed here regarding how a P2P trader whose country didn't legalize bitcoin can seek redress if he was scammed, well IMO I think the whole of the bunk of retrieving the coin should be on the exchange that guaranteed the transaction as escrow. That should be the right position if the party scammed have done all necessary registrations and verified. If the transaction is in binance then they should ensure to retrieve the coin . This is like other off line P2P services, the escrow does the best effort for the transaction to be successful and in a case where it doesn't then the escrow or guarantor is held liable.

However, in the case of P2P in exchanges, I could suggest a deposit fund or reserve by each trader (based on their level of amount) where an exchange could dip in to repay a defaulting party and with that, the scam issues will have a natural death .

If a cryptocurrency is prohibited in a country, this does not mean that citizens of this country cannot use cryptocurrencies in other countries. If this citizen is deceived by a fraudster, then it makes no sense for him to seek help from the police of his country. And it also makes no sense to contact the police of a foreign country if he does not comply with all the laws of another country.

There are few countries that still maintained the ban on cryptocurrency and just imagine someone that is trading cryptocurrency whether through P2P or other means and got scammed, do you think that he will be ready to report the case to the police? This won't happen because he knows that he might even get arrested for breaking the law of his nation. If you trade Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in a country that had out a ban on it, it won't have the gods to report the case because you might even be punished for that. If crypto is legal the a case can be filed.

I've used Binance P2P service before and I have not had such experience and neither have I heard that someone was scammed before. If an issue ever arises there's a dispute center you can always table your complaint to. Binance have access to the chat history, they can see the address, track the transaction on the blockchain and can also request for bank statement if necessary. After reviewing these information I believe they will take the necessary steps to punish the faulted party and see that you get back your funds. If this doesn't happen and a situation where cryptocurrency is not legalized in your country, going to the authorities will only make this worse.

I don't think the main problem here is fraud. If you study well the experience of other users and read their recommendations, you can protect yourself from fraud. The weakest link in this scheme is the banks that will block the trader's account if he often makes p2p exchanges. And banks in all countries work the same way, and then it is very difficult to unblock your account.

Yeah, even here, it's just a small amount that even if you report it, might not be worth to look at by the police and the authorities, hence it's going to be difficult for the victims to recover what they have lost during the scams. Again, I myself have been attempted multiply times by scammers in the P2P in Binance and Bybit, but my experience tells me not to send the funds to them and then we try to go to arbitration with the exchanges and they found out that this are indeed scammers and so they block or ban those account. But for those who are inexperience in this field, they might easily fall for it especially when this scammers are the way dictating you what to do and pressuring you to released the crypto right away.

Small amounts appear in p2p exchanges, I think that even in Europe it is no more than 10,000 dollars for a bank payment, but most likely these are small amounts of 200-2000 dollars. Unfortunately, due to such damage, it makes no sense to contact the police. I perceive such losses as payment for the lesson.

I think this is exactly the reason on why government prohibits the utilization of BTC in their jurisdiction. Since no laws have been created by their respective Congress in dealing with anything related with cryptocurrencies, this follows that if you want to venture in this practice, then you accept the risks that are associated with it.


I think that is a double-edged sword depending on the person they run into.

The difficult thing with cryptocurrencies is knowing which area has jurisdiction over the case in the event of a scam. If you deal with someone via p2p and they have scammed you, depending on where you are staying, then such is enforceable against them. In contrast, if they have dealt with someone who prohibits the utilization of cryptocurrencies, then they cannot enforce such action against them.

In Russia, the situation is similar. Cryptocurrency is not prohibited, but banks are required to verify payments and prevent illegal commercial activity on accounts of individuals where this activity is prohibited. According to Russian law, there are no clear criteria for blocking bank accounts, and therefore each bank chooses its own policy. The bank can block any transfer of money on suspicion, and you will not sue for business damages because you have an agreement with the bank that prohibits commercial activity through this bank account.

There is a maximum transfer limit, which is 600,000 rubles ($6,200), about which all data is automatically sent to Rosfinmonitoring (a large government agency that controls citizens' financial transfers, among other things).

But banks also need customers, so they usually say what requirements they have for transfers between individuals and which accounts will be blocked. This is an excess of monthly limits, this is an excess of the number of payments.

Until there are laws that will regulate this activity, any p2p trading in cryptocurrencies will remain in the shadow zone.

The only entity that governs in peer-to-peer trades is the DAO.  Do not expect your government to help you with cryptocurrencies.  In Binance, I expect them to not really be peer-to-peer, but in Bisq you can address concerns to the mediators and if falling for a big scam, arbitrators.

This can only be taken up in country where crypto activities are allowed, otherwise no way. In my country there is not outright ban of cryptocurrency activities but there is a prohibition that you trade crypto to fiat through the banks. The banks doesn't accept this, unless you are using the false CEX p2p where you still use the bank but not putting narration relating to crypto in the transaction.

So, let's assume there is a legal confrontation, on mentioning that you transacted cryptocurrency with a particular bank, it is a problem to the bank and they will even freeze your account and the remaining balance. The only people to solve the problem is the central authority controlling the p2p

If P2P cryptocurrency exchange is prohibited in your country, then this does not prohibit you from buying cryptocurrencies on P2P marketplaces in other countries.
But usually there is a lot of fraud in those countries where P2P cryptocurrency exchange is not prohibited, and since it is impossible to find a scammer, the police close the criminal case, and the participants in the transaction are forced to negotiate with banks or solve their problems in court.

Well, the government will only help you in this case, if the crypto currency legal in that country. If crypto is not legal, and you will go to the police for any help which happened in P2P scam, they will first question you as why you are dealing in crypto which is not legal. This can go against you if the government is very strict in your country.

That is another reason where the P2P scams are not being reported or registered as people fear to tell all this stuff to the law enforcement agencies and the scammers at P2P know this fact and they do not fear in trying to scam the people involving in P2P through binance or other exchanges.

Bank employees cooperate with fraudsters, for example in Russia, because there is a very small punishment for fraud. The fraudster receives a sentence of 5 years in prison, and after 3.5 years he is released for good behavior.
The situation is approximately the same in other neighboring countries with Russia. In the USA, these problems were closed with very long prison terms.

Even with all these confirmations, the bank is still ignorant of many ways those scammers are using to get funds from there victim. Scammers are always looking for new ways to thief and scammer people no matter the security and restrictions that is needed to cashout from there victim account. Sometimes the bank workers are connected to there scammers that are carrying out this illegal and dubious act. I have seen different circumstances where the scammers were arrested and it was discovered that there are I formants from the bank that are giving out customers Identities and info to the scammers.

In Russia, if the money has been withdrawn from a bank account, then it will be cashed out very quickly through drops. In Europe, there is a system of fast payments, up to 10,000 euros and another payment system, for amounts over 10,000 euros, where payments take longer and the bank checks these payments and requests additional confirmation from the bank client.

This also happens in other countries too and it is something that the government can not stop totally. This can be reduced if the government force the bank to always traced and prosecute people that are involved in this kind of scam.
Some many of these kind of scam are in different style and the scammers always look for ways to make sure that they trick or compelled the victim to quickly do what they want without suspecting if they are scammer or not.

Cryptocurrency has created an avenue for many of these scammers to manipulate the innocent ones and people that do not have good knowledge about the cryptocurrency and how we can become a victim of scam if we are not smart enough. I think we need to pass the information around to those that may not be aware of various crypto scam that could make them lose there funds.

This does not protect against fraud. The fraudster will find the victim in the telegram, and then on the purchased account on the Binance exchange, he will find an application for the purchase of cryptocurrency.
The scammer will give the victim the details of the P2P partner of Binance and the victim will transfer the money to specified bank account. Binance will unlock bitcoins and the scammer will disappear.
Then the victim will write a statement to the police about the P2P participant in the Binance deal.

The Binance chat window can be easily monitored by the exchange. And in terms of fraud or dispute, there will be shreds of evidence to back up claims. There are many advertisements on social media on crypto exchange and using them is risky. It is better to use well-established firms because they possess the necessary operational mechanism to tackle fraud to a large extent.

Engaging in crypto transactions in a country where the currency is banned is risky. Reporting to law enforcement agencies is like reporting to the government that you committed a crime. It will be better to take necessary safety measures.

This is where you need to be extra cautious. There are tons of scam even in centralized platforms that offer P2P buy/sell options. In Binance, the buyer of the coin is usually the one who is more prone to scamming - you can pay the seller and send a payment request and they can just ignore that, and your money is gone just like that. They use fake IDs to get verified in the platform that's why they are brave to do this without hesitation whatsoever.

In these situations, it's best to be vigilant when releasing the coins/funds/whatever. If the other party shows red flags in a transaction, it's best to take your time until they fulfilled their end of the deal before you release the money. Confirm that you have received whatever it is that you need receiving, before marking any transaction as complete. Or better yet, just deal with verified accounts with high reviews to avoid getting scammed. The rates may not be as great, but there is some guarantee to an extent that you'll receive your money/crypto.

It does provide something of a free hand, but if the scammed person has the scammers PayPal etc. then I would gather something could be done in order to bring him/her to justice.

Even in countries where Cryptocurrencies are deemed as 'okay' the Police won't get involved in these matters as they are either not knowledgeable enough about Cryptocurrency frauds or believe that anybody using it is automatic bad person.

As a matter of course I avoid Paxful and Symlix like the plague as they are scammer central:

'You pay me first before I release Bitcoins'
'I am in charge of this trade, you do as I say'
'I want money/Bitcoins first!'
'Let's trade offline...'

When a friend of mine was attacked by somebody who thought he was carrying actual physical Bitcoins on him to a Local Bitcoin meet up, it brought home to me that some people will sadly do anything to get Bitcoin. 

For this purpose, Binance insists that all P2P communication should happen on the Binance chat window and not take that conversation out of the Binance to any third party platform. If the buyer or the seller asks to have a phone call where he tells another account[ s] to transfer the money, Binance can have no control or proof on this and in case of dispute/scam, Binance may not be able to help the victim.

Yes, the government won't be able to help either because of the no legalization of cryptocurrencies, but we have to take as many precautions ourselves to prevent any sort of fraud or scam with us through P2P platforms.

I monitor the methods of fraud in my country. There are a lot of phone scams in which the scammer asks the victim to transfer money to another account. It can be a transfer of money to a drop account or a purchase of a cryptocurrency, but it is impossible to fight against this, because the money will be quickly cashed out. All banks have instructions on how not to become a victim of a scammer, but fools still believe phone scammers.

Unfortunately, yes. There are no checks and balances in place anywhere, so while legitimate users' accounts are being shut down by exchanges who proceed to keep the money, there are also individual scammers (the high-tech thieves) who steal from people for a living, and nobody from the crypto platforms to the social media apps to the countries are doing anything to quash it.

There are countries where people trust the police, and the police protect the interests of the people.
A good example, although controversial:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/texas-lawsuit-between-a-bitcoin-atm-operator-and-a-local-sheriff-5457086
I live in a country where people don't trust the police and the police won't find scammers who will steal your cryptocurrency. In most cases, this cannot be done even in many countries.

You refer to the law, but this law protects the interests of large companies in all countries. Not a single exchange has yet reimbursed a trader due to illegal blocking, because this cannot be proven and the trader himself agrees to this in the terms of use.

There are so many cryptocurrency plugs but one need to be careful how they transact business because they can easily end up in the wrong hands and get scammed. I am referring to place or region when cryptocurrency is never legally official yet and this can make investing in cryptocurrency projects to be very scary with extra ordinary consciousness.

8f we live in a region where cryptocurrency is not regulated, we might find it hard to run transaction even if we uses exchange. Since the government would never come in to help and prosecute the offender for his attempt to scam, this could make it difficult for the scammed victim to complain to the police so the culprit can to arrested and prosecuted by law. We all hope tha Bitcoin would be universally accepted which will reduce scam.

I can't believe that in a large city with a population of more than a million people you will not find a place where you can change cryptocurrency. And if this is a tourist city, then there are definitely no problems with this. There are a lot of scammers, and you do not need to work with the first ad that you find in instant messengers.

I don't think responsibility is the right word. Even if crypto is legalized in your country and you can trade it openly, they still won't compensate you if you fail for a scam. I guess help is the word you're looking for, more or less. At the end of the day though, people should not overly depend on the government to do investigative works to put scammers in jail.

Any decent platform would always alert its users that they should never communicate outside of the platform and ask for proof from their trading partners. Even if you do a P2P trade directly, it is a silly mistake to make unless you're so new to P2P IMO. CMIIW.

It is very important for us to be very careful the way make run transactions in a country where cryptocurrency is illegal. One need to take extra ordinary consciousness to use many of these ex image for p2p trade and this is a way where we can find so many forms of scamming because the government would not take any responsibility if anyone ever report the case of being scam through P2P method.

This kind of scamming where the buy would send fake alert to the seller is very rampard and we all need to take consciousness when dealing with an unknown person online. I have seen many cases where the buyer was claiming that he had paid the fund and begging the seller to release the coin without seeing any fund. Theybhave so many methods they use and we need to be aware of those methods or else, we might fall for there scam.

Pretty good topic. I think Government cant handle or help you with that especially if the user who scammed you is using a disposable wallet for transactions. Plus you cant track him that easily. Binance have fake users, they always reminding users to be vigilant cause some are probably trying to scam them. Anyone could distignuish an account that is legit and only choose those verified one. The trick is dont over to some high offer value that doesnt have much feedbacks. Potentially they are scammers.

Crypto isn't legalized is different from crypto is banned so in the case you're talking still you can take it to legal proceedings if you're scammed while doing cryptocurrency trading and the existing law related to scam through online will still applies.

But how the giant exchanges with intensive KYC procedure for verification still missing the scammers and the platform can give complete information about the scammer if you take it to legal and authority seeks for them.

If you follow all the idiotic rules, then you can remain an idiot. I do not oppose laws, but governments of countries do not have the right to ban cryptocurrencies.Companies also want to make money, so they can formally comply with certain rules.But you must understand the responsibility for this in your country.

There are definitely good tools that we can use to prevent scams from happening, such as multi-sig/escrow, trust profile, trade history, etc. I believe people can definitely use P2P without being scared that much as long as they get the gist of it. But yeah, a change of habit can be quite difficult for some people who usually rely on a third party to prevent scams from happening.

Oh, so that's what you mean. I guess people can do that as long as the requirement is not that difficult. I do have an overseas bank account opened through apps like Wise, but I believe they also need to follow regulations in my country to some extent.

The only way I can think of preventing this is or bring the numbers down is by drafting cyber laws that will deter would be offenders as local mediums will be used when it comes to transferring out fiat. Of course people on these  platforms use fake IDs and the alike, such users can be followed and if the proof is overwhelming their coins can be confiscated and not returned to them and this should definitely bring the numbers down.

But for now, best solution is running an awareness campaign and let p2p  users not trust users on the other side of the screen as these are strangers and trust should never come in the picture.

Agreed, unlike crypto... p2p has an aspect of real life transactions which makes it an interesting case for the police and later the courts, and if found on the wrong side of the law,anything from fraud chargers, to cyber crime to whatever they courts find fit to hit you with can be all piled up on the offenders, so act smart and let's do things cleanly.

If crypto is banned in your country exchanges might be blocked from operating except if you use VPN or other anonymizing browsers. Engaging in such crypto transactions makes you a criminal because you are violating the law of the country thereby committing a crime. He that comes to equity must come with clean hands, so you cannot take legal action against a scammer because you are not also innocent. Since the transaction is illegal before the law, the court has no locus standi to entertain such a matter. It will definitely give scammers the freedom to scam as many people as possible because the transactions are illegal in your country.  The only option is to report to the exchange for investigation and further sanctions.

In Russia, there is a law that requires a bank to check all payments that are more than 600,000 rubles ($7,320) for illegal activity and report them to Rosfinmonitoring.
But the bank can also block payments of smaller amounts if it sees this as illegal activity (and there are no clear criteria, even 15 receipts of money a day for $ 30 may be cause for questions). According to the agreement with the bank, it is forbidden to engage in commercial activities.
If, for example, you withdraw cash from an ATM after the transfer to you, then you will be blocked earlier. If you only receive money and spend it in stores, then your bank account will live longer, but P2P trading will still lead to account blocking. I asked arbitrageur about this issue and they said that on average 1 bank account works for a month or less before blocking.

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If cryptocurrency is banned in your country, you can ask friends from other countries to set up an account with one of the European payment systems and buy cryptocurrencies through these systems.

It really depends on the nature of the scam. In P2P trading, fiat is usually involved. So regardless of whether crypto is involved or not, it can be taken up by the court of law. Even in my country, crypto is not recognised in any way legally. Still we often face bank freeze issues and it can be taken up with legal enforcement team.

Can op please be specific what kind of scam you are referring to?

8k USD per month transaction limit is kinda low, isn't it? If it is because crypto is being used, I wonder why they don't block people from the beginning and wait until they reach a certain threshold. Is there a limit or something on the trading activity for each month?

I'm not sure I get it, how can you be sure that a service is available in my country if it was blocked in Europe/US? For example, Pakistan just ban crypto based on the news shared a few days ago iirc because they don't want to get blacklisted internationally. At the end of the day, I do believe exchange services will allow users from countries that don't explicitly ban crypto trading activities.

I would say yes if the country doesn't recognize the Crypyto or the p2p marketplace as legal companies or entities. There is nothing much you can do. But you can still probably make a report to the police but when the p2p is from overseas the gov help you is near zero

People who trade on Binance do so because of the trade volume there. No one wants to be delayed getting their order filled. That level of traffic also attracts scammers. That's the reality. However, there's something everyone can do to reduce the level of scam attempts they encounter. My method of sieving through the murky water of scam has always helped me and that's simply never to be in a rush. Once it comes to financial transactions, I take my time to attend to it. I'm never in a hurry. That haste is where the mistake comes in. Scammers know that and they utilize it on their victims. Once someone is trying to hurry you up in a transaction, don't fall for it. Again, don't take the bait of high buying offer or low selling offer. If it's too good to be true, then it's a scam lurking. Another is to check the number of deals executed by traders before you patronize them. Read the feedback on traders also, that's very important.

In Russia, for example, such exchanges will quickly lead to the blocking of a bank account. On average, 7-8 thousand dollars per month of operations on a bank card and the account is blocked.
It is difficult to use banks for arbitrage in many countries, because there are a lot of problems with blocking, and stablecoins can be used for storage.
I would try to use the European and American services that are on the website https://www.bestchange.com/
for purchase only. If you are blocked there, then there will be no problems in your own country. You can buy cryptocurrencies in small amounts of 300-500 dollars.

@OP I think if you're reporting P2P scam in legal court, both of you and the scammer will get punishment. So it's not a good choice because even if you win, you're still need to accept the punishment since you're using Bitcoin in illegal country. So my advice you should let the money if you get scammed, rather than following a complicate laws and stay in jail for a year.

Incorrect,

China has permanently ban Bitcoin, but Binance employees' are helping their users to bypass Bitcoin ban in Chin., so there's a chance the Binance employee help users to trade in illegal countries.

I will only assumed that the OP is living wherein it's in the gray area, neither illegal because Binance was able to thrive and at the same time government are still in the middle as far as far as their support or not of crypto.

So everything lies on our end, we need to be very careful on who we deal with in their P2P platform. And Binance are not short of giving reminders though when you try to used their services. So the bulk of it all depends on us, we can see who can we deal with, in terms of trading volume, and then the reviews that being left by the sellers themselves.

Does your country explicitly state that trading crypto is illegal, or crypto is not allowed as a means of payment (like how fiat works)? If it is the latter, I think you won't get jailed as long as the government is not doing something behind the scenes. If it is the former then prevention is definitely the only way to protect yourself. Relying on somebody else is not a good idea, to begin with.

I don't think it is feasible for the average user to open a new bank account overseas. Not to mention it doesn't solve anything if they use a platform that doesn't support any dispute system, a multi-sig/escrow to prevent scams, etc. CMIIW.

In my country (India) our police cyber cell is way proactive than any cyber crime unit globally. If they find such a scam they not only freeze the account of P2P vendor and the user but all other accounts where the vendor has made payments in the past.

Thus freezing the accounts of those who are innocent and had zero clue about the scam. Then their is a hectic process of trying to unfreeze the account that involves visiting to the police station. Almost every cop in our country doesn't have a clue about crypto or will act like one.

The solution is to have a bank account dedicated for only cryptocurrency transaction. Always transact with verified vendors. Do check the feedback and rating and never fall for u realistic buy and sell price.

Overall to avoid any such issues in the future it would be wise to setup and entity in a crypto friendly country. Do all crypto to fiat and fiat to crypto transaction in that country. Then send your profits through wire transfer to your home country.

This is only true in regions where the crypto is legal or at least there is no objection to doing crypto transactions. Many countries do not have the privilege of depositing and withdrawing crypto using debit/credit cards. They have only option and that is P2P to convert their money from fiat to crypto and vice versa.


And if you ever happened to take your case to a court of law, they will first not only take your case but at the same time make you guilty of using the cryptocurrencies against the rule of law. The only way to remain safe in this situation is to make P2P transactions cautiously so that no one can scam you.

P2P is better not to use if you receive money on your bank card and do not declare income.
You may get a transfer of the money that was stolen and your police will question you and your accounts will be blocked by the bank. Scammers have accounts registered to other people, which are called "droops". Send money to your bank card only through verified exchangers that have been operating for a long time and will not send you criminal money. But you still need to open an account with another bank.

The same here in my country, since crypto is illegal and there are no regulations, the responsibility lies entirely with you in case you get scammed when doing P2P.

On the contrary, you may be subject to legal accountability by the authorities for why you make this type of illegal financial transfer. So you have to be very careful and take the risk at your own risk because you cannot file a fraud complaint with the government in such cases.

The best thing is to use only P2P Binance or trusted exchanges.

I have heard about such scams that were taking place on Binance platform. It's a common practice for some scammer to loot money from innocent users who would like to exchange their crypto with fiat local currency where they live. The scammers are doing editing works to share fake screenshots to innocent users and the innocent user releases the crypto without any confirmation.

The court and law won't be helpful in such cases because if a country and its justice system hasn't considered a thing legal in this case crypto-currencies than why would they even punish someone who's doing such transactions that the government warns its citizens to not do. They whole thing is on a persons own shoulders in such cases and the scammers know this thing, that's why they are doing such scams.

Only hope in such cases is the platform where users are doing such p2p transactions. In this case only Binance has the power to punish the scammers who are misusing their services for looting the money out of innocent users. But, I have seen that the ones who post their ads for either buying or selling crypto on the exchange are mostly favored by Binance platform.

I recommend everyone who trades using p2p to first check the past trades of a dealer and if a dealer has done more than 200 trades in the month and 99% of the trades went positive then you should trade with such dealers. Otherwise the dealers whose trades are mostly negative then a user should avoid trading with such kind of dealers because if ratio of negative trades is high then it's risky to trade with such dealers.

The government made crypto illegal. Thats where they stand.

Binance will always remind P2p traders every transaction but if they are going to be a victim still, it really is the fault of the user.  Its also a problem because they know any user engaing in crypto in the country can not bring the police in the situation because they'll be in trouble. A smart strategy for scammers to hunt crypto users in the country.

This recording is not in English so it may not be useful for many of us. Perhaps you can pinpoint important things which you learned from this session, and it will be helpful for all of us.



Since you have done many P2P successful transactions, you're experienced and therefore you may not get scammed easily but as far as i know there are many newbies who get scammed because of fake transaction screenshots or by third party transactions and so on. If you follow the process with due diligence, i am sure it will be hard for the scammers to scam us through P2P.

I have made hundreds, if not thousands of p2p trades but never at any one moment did a scammer take any money from me. Of course once in a while, you will get those people that will try to scam you but if you follow all the p2p trading rules to the book, they will not have a single chance even during the appealing process.

I think sometimes people are too relaxed with their money

Having crypto is like having cash in your house under your personal control. In most cases, even Police won't protect you. If the money is stolen or gets lost in your house. It's very rare police will help you recover it.

If crypto is banned in your country like they don't want you trading. I think it has more to do with people burying themselves along if they try to report the scam.

I wouldn't say they cannot be punished provided that there's a law that fits. Scams are scams at the end of the day. For instance, if someone used bitcoin for a crime, it doesn't mean their action would be un-crime'd, right?

But finding the perp would be no easy feat (unless they're dum dums) since buying and selling of exchange accounts are rampant + most small time scammers get little to no attention from authorities.

It's all over Binance now, I recently experience this P2P scams, but it's Bybit platform, here is the thread, {Babala}: Mag-ingat sa P2P trading.

I think the only one that can do something right now is the exchanges themselves, I don't think that the government can go after this scammers, I mean it will take a lot of time and effort to track all of them.

The best thing for us to do is to report it right away to the platform and the best effort is to suspend or removed the account and try to mark it so that they can't open another account with them.

P2p isn't something new were user could quickly get scammed in that manner, if someone get scammed the only place to resolve the issues is from Binance immediately the person's account would automatically get locked or frozen then the scammer may not be able to withdraw his assets all less the funds is being refunded to the original owner.

What you should do is that since the country doesn't recognize such trade or even legalized cryptocurrency you don't have to take it law where by you take law into your hands. It will be ideal you avoid taking up the case into legal way rather report such to the exchange probably when next  funding his or her account all funds are automatically frozen.

The government don't have any hand in this kind of scam especially in countries where crypto is Banned because taking a case like this to the authorities will create a red flag for you to be apprehended both you and the scammers will be in trouble.

Another thing here again is that the scammer can Denny this kind of case in court since your P2P other don't have any form of legal backing which could be used as evidence to file a case against your scammer.

Now their is only few option left for anyone who is scammed on any P2P platform this option is either you report the trade even when it's concluded you can go to the trade history and report the trade to the support team which they might likely look into but their is no guarantee.

Or you can click on the name of the person and see if they have other active orders their in the forum that's if they bought from you and refuse to send money, you can check if they have active buy order in the market, if they do, place exactly scammed amount as an active order and click on paid, then allow the seller to go to appeal, from the appeal you can explain your situation to the agent assigned to the case which will make them lock/restrict you both transaction till the issue is fully resolved.

If you are the crypto owner and you want to exchange it on fiat via P2P then I guess your assumption is correct since crypto doesn’t have any value on a government that is not legal. It’s same when you are selling illegal items and the counter party didn’t pay.

If you knew that you are dealing an item that is not legal on your country then you should protect it  by all means.

Also P2P on Binance has a dispute function. No one will  scammed if they will just check carefully.

These days there are a lot of P2P scams on Binance and other platforms. The P2P platforms are not be blamed but the scammers are coming up with new ways to scam people who are new to the crypto world.

Recently Binance did a P2P scam awareness session with our local community which was very informative.

The recording can be watched here   https://www.binance.com/en/live/video?roomId=2138115

Now my question is that in my country, crypto is not legalized, so in case if anyone is scammed through P2P, we can't take up this matter in the legal court because the country does not recognize the transactions of crypto in the first place.

Does this gives a free hand to scammers as they know that they cannot be punished by a court of law