Bitcoin Forum

I have been looking at different trading sites and am wondering the following:

Is there a list of reputable sites? If so where?

Is there a list of sites to stay away from? Again if so where?

What are the green, yellow, red indicators when checking out a site?

If you post a "Stay away" or "This is a great sight" please provide a reason why it is bad or good.

Thank you

Grimwald

"What is not defined cannot be measured,
What is not measured cannot be controlled,
What is not controlled cannot be managed,
What is  not managed cannot be improved,
If you are not trying to improve it then you do not care"
-- Author Unknown

In general with all things around "handling money online" I would suggest to imagine that you're trying to register a normal "checking account".
You would not trust your salary to some dubious website, would you? ;)

The following tips might be of use:

Green Indicators

• Important: Officially backed by a financial institute.
  
• Large website, media coverage.
• No known security leaks.
• Operator is a registered company.

Red Indicators

• No information about the operator.
• Operator registered in a place that is known to be home to a lot of bogus companies. (Cayman Islands?)
• Website functionality clearly broken sometimes.

If you're living within Europe I can definitely suggest bitcoin.de.

Although they've had problems (especially during the first big crash in 2013) in the beginning the exchange service is running smoothly now:
They're adhering to AML guidelines, have an official partner bank, offer fast support and have a pretty active community.
And it's available in English!

Thanx for the replies:
To I_am_the_one_who_knock those are pretty basic indicators that I would agree on but apparently there are no guaranteed "safe" exchanges for crypto.

I was looking into 2 well known exchanges and did some research only to find that a number of the members here who had used them for sometime have had multiple issues which have yet to be resolved. I refer to cryptsy and coins-e.

No I'm not in Europe Canada here but thanx for the referal

Well, if I wanted to be cynical I could say that there never is anything that is 100 per cent guaranteed to be safe, no matter if it is a digital currency exchange or the milkman. ;)
But I see your point.

Still, if you have an exchange platform that is linked to an actual company registered in a non-dubious country you always have some means of "legal leverage". I would say that this is a major point. If the platform is legitimate, well-run and not too big (like Mt.Gox) the chance of solving problems directly are also higher, IMO.


Still safer than Paypal, I guess.  :-\

And of course it is a smart idea to stick to the "basic guidelines": Alway Keeping your coins in your personal wallet and not online, do not put your life savings into BTC in just one exchange etc.

Certainly just stay away from Paypal as much as you can ! wanna some reasons ? scammers gonna rob you faster !