Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I am using localbitcoins for the first time , deposited some btc , created an ad for western union payments and left it open.
Few minutes later when I came , I noticed that 0,5 btc were deducted from my account, a random guy has left a message giving me his email and marked payment as complete, I started the dispute and did not release the bitcoins but they were already deducted.

I quickly wrote a message to support explaining the situation ,
can someone tell me if this is an usual thing there and what are the chances of getting scammed like this?

UPDATE :

During the trade buyer made a scam attempt where he marked as payment complete , meanwhile during the process of trade bitcoins are not actually deducted but "reserved" and held until the payment is complete OR the payment window ends(which can take hours).

It took me ~5 hours to get my bitcoins back , beware of scammers out there!

No. Localbitcoins is legit and one of the oldest bitcoin p2p websites I know off.

Here what I think could have happened: You had a malware on your computer, which allowed a hacker to get access over your account and steal your coins by doing a fake trade with himself.

If that's the case, Localbitcoins can't do anything since Bitcoin transactions are irreversible. Which means that your coins are probably gone.

 ;D I do care more of my account's security then I do for myself, I do daily scans, download and run files on vps , use hard to break passwords , two step authenticators so hacking is not an option , someone told me that it is not deducted but it is "reserved" and released once both sides accept the trade, so let's see , waiting for hours now , payment window was around 5 hours so it should close soon or ...

First of all Localbitcoins is not a exchange company, it is just a platform where people come together to have their funds exchanged. It's similar to a forum of like-minded people. I have been using their platform since a long time now and till date I haven't faced any issue. Usually I sell my bitcoins through their platform and receive fiat money in my local currency from any trader who is offering a good price. When a send a trade request to a trader, my funds go in to escrow and I usually receive the money in to my bank account within maximum 10 minutes.

I don't what went wrong for you. But I believe their support will be able to assist you within the due time. But I know a lot of people here will be supporting localbitcoin because it is really a fantastic platform with very less/no issues.

Same experience on here too regarding on using localbitcoin.This is the fast way i do sell or buy bitcoin with other people it is somehow secured specially funds would really be escrowed which chance of getting scammed would really be lesser than not on using escrow when theres a transaction between other people.

this is ever happened to someone else before or me(also) and the problem do not come from localbitcoin but instead came from your PC/Laptop or yourself.
there are a lot of phising email whenever you try to log in to localbitcoin,
for example me right now,
i ever open up something from website or redirect my browser to other website when i try to loggin to my account.
after that in the next morning my account loggin by itself (so lucky because i never deposit my Bitcoin in there),
so far they are a legit company,but remember they are not an excanger but peer to peer(P2P) platform.
they did not sell anything or buy anything.

You didn't check the incoming transaction norms before you sent the bitcoin from your primary wallet to lbc wallet. They use to adjust the deposit whenever the price fluctuates.
Is legit one of the exchange in the market place which been widely used by the many people. I use to exchange the bitcoin to fiat whenever I need a cash.

So is your money with the escrow or just pending till you accept the trade? LBC most probably won't help in this case as when users get scammed due to phishing attempts or get scammed, and you reported the case, they'll ban the scammer's account here. Hopefully you should get your money back if the trade as this is written in their terms:


I guess it's not a scam attempt as your trade has yet not been completed but the buyer was definitely a scammer.

This is serious. I know very well that localbitcoins is a legit and a fast p2p website, I have not faced something like this before or maybe you did something that you can't say. There is an escrow that holds the coin and you must confirm the transaction before coins are released, so, I don't really get, look at it again and again.

Local bitcoin is trusted and secure
I used it several times and still 

Legit business. But take care of your money and only deal with very trusted buyers and sellers. And depending of your locations be aware of some problems that people are reporting, not with LBC itself but with the relationship with banks if you decide to user bank transfers for your transactions and deals.

No, here in my country is too easy to use localbitcoins, and the users who are buying and selling bitcoins are too fast, i remember that once i setup an sell order and in 10 minutes i had the money on my bank account. The only way you could get scammed is if you are a fool and you de-escrow the money to the buyer.

Yes it was actually a scam attempt from buyer since he marked payment as complete without even waiting for my reply, I got my btc back , during the payment window which lasts around 300 min it was hold as "reserved".

localbitcoins is definitely not a scam site, but beware there are plenty of scammers there. I have not heard of this happening before though. Like you said they may be "reserved", hopefully this gets sorted out quickly for you.

If you gave them all the really info that you have not taken the money, they should be giving you the bitcoins back, they are not scam, users are scammers.

Based on en my personal as I am using the system before, local bitcoin is legit and less hassle. This is before, the time when our country has no legit exchanges. Now, I seldom used it.

If it is about security then bitcoin security is more protected than other securities etc. As you talked about vps and scaning then it is quite great from you that you are doing that. By the way which vps are you using.

Localbitcoins is trusted
I use it several time and very safe , Secure and trusted

LBC is the only exchange that I consistently use to trade btc. I know it is totally legit, and follows all of the protocols that it has posted.

I am curious about their KYC / AML practices tho. I have added identification to facilitate smoother trades with peers, however I am unsure if LBC could ever be audited. Does anyone know? They are not located in the US - is this information correct?

thanks!

There is built in escrow, so you are fine. There are hundreds that have used it and we just did yesterday. I would trust a site from Bularia, operating out of a back alley before trusting anyone here, so localbitcoins is a fine choice.  The trust system on that site is 100% authentic and we can safely buy sell bitcoins there.

And that, my friend, is exactly why I say Localbitcoins is the safest way to sell or buy Bitcoin (for fiat). The escrow system holds coins and is released only when the seller confirms funds are received. You said it took you around 5 hours to resolve the dispute? That's quick in my opinion, judging from waiting times on other exchanges.

The only thing you shouldn't do on LBC is their offline exchange... you just never know who you're dealing with, and without escrow protection.

Localbitcoins is not an exchange. It is just a tool to find people who are selling or want to buy bitcoin. Means, the site itself is not responsible if you were scammed by one of the user there. It's not really safe so you must have an escrow for extra security. Be careful of who you are dealing with because not all users at LBC are trusted. So it's important to get an escrow before trading. If you are from US. You can't use this service because the government stops all operations of LBC there.

Im in the US and i use LBC exclusively... So that statement is not true at all. You cn most definitely use Local Bitcoins in the US.. In fact, I would highly recommend it if you know what you're doing.

localbitcoins is extremely safe to use. They force you to use 2fa on your account and they use escrow during transactions to make it double safe.

AWS - Amazon web services is the one I use

Local bitcoin is now an hub for people looking for ways to scam others of their resources and its not even encouraged for newbie to patronise there because the chances of one being scammed is higher than not being scammed. I would rather patronise individual sites to exchange to fiat than to give myself the headache of going through their entire process and at the end still fll in the hands of scammers.

LocalBitcoin is safe and trusted but the people not so much if I can say. There are a lot of fraud there.

For example selling Bitcoin for Paypal then once sold, the buyer opens a dispute or chargeback with unauthorized account/transaction access. It is something common and that's why the sellers set a rate higher (20%) for Paypal sales. The same with bank transfers, there are a lot of people sending you bank transfer and then contact their bank with all kind of excuse.

I agree but unfortunately I live in a partially independent country which limits my opportunities ... most of internet services are not available for my country for example I am not able to sell my bitcoins on any exchange like kraken which is a great alternative.

That's why I end up for localbitcoins  :-\

Couldnt you use a VPN to work around your countries limitations?

I don't think VPN is helpful when withdrawing money from bank or getting it there  ;D

Sorry, i guess i misunderstood your problem... I see what youre saying now. That is tricky... however, it gives you an opportunity to stack your btc and not be tempted to pull out. You can always tether on an exchange if you think the market is going to dump. I personally dont really trust tether, but i think im just paranoid. :)

That's unfortunately the nature of P2P. But I do find in my particular country anyway that the methods I use are extremely difficult to defraud. I always contact the trader first so if they don't provide a method of contact, I don't use them. Then, it has to be an online trade with escrow. Finally, the method of payment is usually online bank transfer. Once sent, yes they can still try and reverse the tx through the bank, but it happens with difficulty from their side.

Also, I do my sells in a few small batches with several trusted traders (those who have years of trades and high volume). It wouldn't make sense for them to sacrifice their feedback for a few hundred dollars. As a newbie, build up sells first so you have enough trust for people to want to take your buys.

That is why you must trade with the users who have trades done more then 1000 times , even i am selling my bitcoins for more then 2 yrs in local bitcoins but i have taken full precautions. But even i dont tell that it is safe but i first talk with the user before trading in localbitcoins exchange.

Anyone who reads this I can guarantee LocalBitcoins is safe because I did a trade there and it went perfect!

Wow, this is the first time I hearing this about local bitcoin, I have used it several times myself for local BTC purchase and sales, everything went on smooth, check your pc or laptop for any kind of malware/virus, also be careful not falling a victim to phishing sites

It's a good site to trade your coins at different price from different seller. Or you can be seller as well. However people will be scammer as you got the experience by yourself. This will be case everywhere you go, bad world is always there on the ass. However local bitcoin will take care of your coins by holding them before they will release to the buyer and won't do anything unless and until the payment is completed. Though you get scammed they will have all the details of scammer which is mandatory procedure and that's next step forward for your security.

local bitcoin is safe i must agree with that also if you let scammers scam you then thats the thing that localbitcoin look not safe.