Bitcoin Forum

So not exactly sure if I'm in the right place, but I was wondering about localbtc trading, as far as what to look out for in event of scams and what not. From what I've seen it seems pretty safe, but always would rather be careful. If I'm in the wrong spot I do apologize, totally new here.

i think for me, localbitcoin is a place to buy and sell bitcoin and for doing trading, i'd better do in other exchanges because i can doing trading for not just bitcoin and fiat but i can do trading for bitcoin and altcoin and i think so far i am fine with that. but if you want to make localbitcoin as your place for trading, then you can do it but always be careful because we don't know about the other people which make transaction in localbitcoin.

Yes LBC is one of the safest trading platform and they had been operating stably and many traders are trusting them already. So if you are worrying about them, it's up to you and being careful will always be our responsible as a trader.

To avoid scam in localbitcoin you can use some escrow services like bitify if you feel that person is not trusted enough.
And just be responsible trader and be alert all the time in trading.

What to look out to not get scammed:
- Don't send any bitcoin to a new guy first who have contacted you over social media chat or in skype.
- Use escrow in middle if the guy with whom you are going to deal with is not ok with sending first.
- Don't sell bitcoins for paypal or skrill because you can get scammed with chargebacks
- Most important one, try not to have face to face deal with unknown guys. People have been killed over bitcoin deals.

What sort of trading are you looking to do? Are you planning to meet someone in person to do a trade or do you just want to trade by transferring funds through bank wire or something similar?

Always opt to use escrow for larger amounts and look for traders that have hundreds of positive reviews from customers on the LBC website itself.

If you're not looking to trade by meeting someone in person, there are better options than LBC imo.
Most exchanges offer less fees.

you should be able to determine the right place. and also you have to be at the right time. everything that is the deciding factor in trading.

localbitcoins is not scam, in there the best and first about bitcoin market placed and decentralized trading
if you want safe trading in there you can use escrow service

yes that is right to say that time play important role in trading. those people who mange their time in good way then they can be succeeded in trading.

To be honest it's not that safe.  It's a good place to do it since it's P2P and you're not dealing with a big company, but there can be a lot of scams on LocalBitcoin.

LocalBitcoins has a trust system so that you can deal with trustworthy members, but that always leaves the possibility of account farming open just like on Bitcointalk - so you end up with a lot of people buying accounts both for legitimate means (for getting trades easier) and for scamming people, so you can never be sure that even trusted users will be legit.

To keep yourself safe there's only a couple of rules which you need to follow:

-If you go face to face with cash transfer, make sure you meet up in a public place.  You don't want to be messing around with someone really dodgy, they could well be a thief or other criminal, especially when they want the anonymity of cash.

-Don't sell for PayPal at all.  PayPal is really reversible and easy to charge back - loads of people try to scam you with PayPal and even would buy trusted accounts to scam with larger amounts of money.

-If the person is uncomfortable with paying first and you're not meeting in person, you should find a trusted escrow to use as in many cases neither of you would want to pay first.

one thing that i don't see any of the other comments mention to you is that the site is called localbitcoins.com and this URL is the correct one that people use, if you are on any other site it may not be safe and possibly an imposter.

as for trading, after doing what others said you can trade with that guy with a small amount and then if you trusted him you can bookmark to sell/buy bitcoin everytime you need.

but if you can, try buying from exchanges, that is safer and will be much cheaper to trade too.