Topic: Rules to avoid being scammed (Read 5928 times)

These rules were written assuming a position of a newbie that has to send first payment to buy something from an older member of the Forum. Of course, if you have some reputation, and don't have to send first, these rules are mostly irrelevant. It's the other party that will take most of the risk. But you still have to take in account rule 10 and the possibility of a double spending. Better wait for one or two confirmations in the blockchain, before fulfilling your part of the deal.

Beware that these rules use three different grades of reputation: some, good and excellent.


1) Don't just trust the status of a member, anyone can be a hero member. This just means that he invested some time on his membership. He can always decide that a profitable scam will be a good payment for his time. However, a Hero account without negative feedback can be sold for more than 0.5 btcs. Therefore, he probably won't scam you for less than that, because a negative feedback from you would lower its value substantially. The same applies to a legendary up to about 1 btc.

2) Never deal with anyone without doing a search in the forum with his nickname, in order to check if he has scam accusations.

3) Ask for his coin address and always search it on http://blockchain.info, www.cryptocoinexplorer.com or other similar site, to verify if his address has the amounts he wants to sell.

4) Be very suspicious about proposals well under market price or if he accepts your proposal under market price with no negotiation.

5) Look for the reputation/trust of the member, checking also his successful trades, in the form of vouches from the other party on the deal. Be aware that positive trust can be forged by making and using more bitcointalk accounts and the efficacy of the trust system can be more or less limited by changing its settings.

6) Even if he has some reputation, don't send all the money in one transfer: send one first small tranche (ex. 0.05 btc) and wait for his payment. Send a second little higher tranche and wait again, etc. Small increments, because he might decide to pay you the first and second, to scam a bigger tranche. Always suspect if he doesn't accept to trade in small tranches, unless he has an excellent reputation.

7) If he has no reputation (specially if he is a newbie or Jr.), even small tranches are very risky. Better use an escrow system, like the one of www.btcrow.com, or a trusted member, or you might need to send more than 10 very small tranches. Think well before sending more than 0.15 btcs (it's considerable money in some countries) and only after 3 or 4 successful payments of 0.05 and 0.1 btcs.

8] For big amounts use an escrow system, unless the member has an excellent reputation. If he doesn't accept, forget the deal. Always protect your capital.

9) Only trade codes (ex. of virtual gift cards) with members with a good reputation or using a very trusted escrow member that will have to go to the account and apply the code himself. The buyer will have to give the escrow person his password and change it again after. With an automatic escrow system, the buyer can claim falsely that the code was already redeemed when he received it or that his account was blocked after.

10) Don't sell any cryptocoin to paypal or other reversible system, unless the buyer has good reputation. The buyer can chargeback and, since it's against paypal's TOS to trade currency, paypal usually gives your money back to the buyer.


Here is a list of escrow members: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/escrow-list-108716

Scamming in bitcoins happens very rarely though. But these precautions can help you be safe in such cases.
(1).....
(2) Use a protected and trusted bitcoins wallet. Blockchain and coinbase are most reliable.
(3)....

Many thanks, this was vey helpfull to get started and avoid losses.

i always used escrow for every transaction in this forum,i used escrow from our moderator on our local thread, its totally free just send them the amount plus the fee for transaction both of the escrow and the seller, so far its really helping me to avoid scam

i always used escrow for every transaction in this forum,i used escrow from our moderator on our local thread, its totally free just send them the amount plus the fee for transaction both of the escrow and the seller, so far its really helping me to avoid scam

One thing you might want to add is never pre-order a miner unless very well known/respected company and even then be careful.  Sadly a lot have lost to preorder miners over the years.

I know it almost got me once with terrahash.  I got lucky they took paypal trying to look more legit to offer paypal and btc.  But I paid paypal and got it back luckily.

We need to check reliability of a site or person using this forum or Google.
Escrow would play a big role in scam preventing.