Though i'm especially careful to use escrow NOW, I will admit to falling idiot victim by FE an order (not using escrow) and losing my money (like an IDIOT). Even still, it's been difficult to find names of escrow services (on clearnet, not DNMs) but more importantly names of escrow services that themselves aren't scammers and which I can feel comfortable having control of my money for the duration of the transaction because people I trust (or hope I can) can vouch for the good ones.
Had I not stumbled across this post because it was at the top, much like I stumble across life, i'd have never found the reliable escrow list you guys have here (I should have known there was one, but have I mentioned i'm an idiot yet?
.I don't mean to be rude to these people i'm referring to because I too am an idiot but there are many many idiot's who've somehow managed to figure out all by themselves how to turn currency into BTC (or whatever method they've used to 'acquire' BTC).
If we don't guide them/me by making some of the first thing's they see when they click on a forum are post's linking them on how to be safe, use escrow (and which ones are safe) and depending on the person's needs other thing's like good OPSEC or fuck even just good web etiquette because it seems a lot of us are lacking in that department too, then the community will suffer from all the drama and wasted time that arises when you let scammer's get you (and then have anger to vent, typically on forums).
It's stupid but keep these simple post's with link's to good escrow or anything you consider fundamentally important up and on many of the sub-forums (I think $ when buying thing's is fundamentally important, no matter what form it's in
). It might help prevent noob mistakes from the start and maybe (here's to dreaming) reduce the number of scammer's lurking. Can't do anything about trolls (but ignore them) but you can help noobs before they whine and feed the scammers. 
