The fact that bitcoin is pseudonymous (for small to medium amounts for all intensive purposes this means it is anonymous) means that scammers are very much attracted to bitcoin and bitcoin related deals.
If you attempt to buy or sell bitcoin in this section then, more likely then not there will be multiple attempts to scam you. In order to protect yourself against scam attempts, you should always use a trusted third party escrow (a middle man) to protect all parties of a transaction. The cost of escrow is very small, especially considering that there is generally little chance of you recovering any funds you are scammed out of if/when you do get scammed.
Just because you are paying in a way that might be abel to be reversed does not mean that it is safe to send funds first if you cannot (should not) trust the person you are trading with
Who should you trust to escrow your transaction:- It is generally a good idea to only use someone who is publicly offering escrow services, this will allow you to check an additional reference for potential problems
- Generally speaking, someone who has a Dark Green number under their profile (their trust rating) without adjusting your trust settings
- Someone who, in your best judgment is not going to scam you - it is ultimately up to you to find someone who you can safely say will not run away with your money being held in escrow
- Someone whose PGP/GPG key you previously have prior to contacting them for escrow (it is okay if you import their key immediately prior to requesting their escrow services)
Who you should not trust to escrow your transaction:- Anyone that does not have at least Light Green trust. Anyone who fits this criteria and is offering their escrow services is almost certain to scam you.
- Anyone who you are not confident is going to treat all parties of a transaction fairly
- Anyone who you are not confident is going to not scam you while acting as escrow
Note to mod note: This thread is technically in the wrong section, however due to the large number of recent successful scams in the currency exchange section, and the lack of a similar warning in the Currency Exchange section, I feel that this is necessary to post here. There are similar warnings in the
Goods,
lending, and
auctions sections, but not one here, so I feel that it is appropriate to have one in Currency Exchange. (Either this or a similar thread really should be stickied here). I had bounced the idea of a similar thread off of a moderator via Skype however did not receive any kind of response so I decided to take the initiative myself.
OP note: feel free to make suggestions for improvements, however I prefer to keep this thread as general as possible and to avoid making any specific recommendations in case a particular piece of advice does not sufficiently protect someone.
The below post is additional good advice
