Bitcoin Forum

Because these cards can be easily carded, that means they can easily be purchased with stolen credit card info. And Localbitcoins.com are working with the man and the pigs, so they do not offer these payment methods anymore.

It's a very good decision in my opinion and Paxful should follow them because It doesn't matter how careful you are, you could fall for these scams one way or another. I remember buying some cards from someone on Paxful, and he used to have +1000 positive reviews while only a couple negative and then, his cards were carded. I managed to do some digging to find out that he's involved in some carding forums.

too many scams and thefts which lead people to complain to localbitcoins, so localbitcoins removed it to remove the headache

the only real payment method is a bank account direct transfer, but even a direct bank transfer is not without scam risk. this is why even hobby localbitcoiners ask for KYC. knowing enough about the fiat sender to prove the person does own the fiat senders bank account so they cant try reversal scams (pretend they got hacked/id frauded to get refund)

though MSB(money service businesses) by regulatory policy NEED to KYC, hobby localbitcoiners do it for personal reasons to avoid scammers trying to grab their fiat back and keeping the coin

this is why people prefer to actually meetup at bitcoin social events/conferences/use ATMS as its harder to grab the money back using the false pretence of "i got hacked/ID frauded" which is easy to achieve remotely

just remember. if you had a suitcase of cash would you hand it over to a stranger you met 5 minuts ago. .. no? well thats why its even riskier to do remote payments if you dont know who your trading with. (you cant slap them with a wet fish if they scam you). so love or hate KYC. atleast recognise why people do it even if they are not regulated, and why some services just avoid certain payment methods completely (paypal used to/still is the chargeback king of scammer tools)

It is understandable from some point. But if the carded card scam continues, it will make world better place by either a) people get smarter and do not accept gift cards, b)gift card sellers do not accept credit cards online or c) bump up the security to make purchases impossible for not only carders but all normal users as well, then switch to cryptocoins as a result.

Cards are just another payment mode like bank transfer , if we talk about scams or carded cards , a vendor always release btc , when they completely assure the cards balance is used by them only. Otherwise they dont pay . Also escrow facility keeps both the parties safe and gives a fair chance to everyone. i believe options like coinbaazar.com and paxful.com are still there who can actually provide this kind of service.

Speaking from my experience as a trader from Localbitcoins, the main reason is probably because it is intrinsically difficult for the support to solve any dispute. The problem with gift card is that the seller could give the trader an used gift card and try to pass it off as legitimate. Due to the structure of the various sites, it is not possible for the gift card to be tracked and thus it is difficult to see who is telling the truth. It's more likely due to the hassle of managing such issues rather than its legitimacy.  I've bought tons of gift card from there for personal use and I've never experienced any problems after redeeming them.

Now  a days cards vendors generally deal in physical cards , which are not bought online by any scam or something . Yes there could be scams related to cards , but dont forget the fact , there are many speculations going on exchanges being hacked. I think localbitcoins.com is not able to handle the traffic at this moment, as they were having these cards payment facility since long. Countries like south africa solely depends on these cards payment to btc .

It is not that localbitcoins.com site is not able to handle the traffic but they are seeing the users safety that is why they have stopped the gaming card payment system. But i think it is still being traded as users can put that payment option in their trade advertisement so still it is traded by this way.

I am afraid cards cannot be traded anymore , if you visit localbitcoins.com , u will realize we cannot find the payment mode type from online offers. Also escrow facility is itself a safety feature for trades which uses gift cards or somewhat same payment type , In this way both buyer and seller are safe. Scams happening through gift cards and btc is very minimal as compared to the number of trades.

Localbitcoins.com have recently updated their privacy policy and all their users are obligated to accept that update.It's not a secret that Amazon,Google Play and iTunes gift cards are used for carding and other illegal activities for years,but why those major corporations don't just stop selling gift cards?
Anyway,it's a good move from localbitcoins.

Thanks for the news. I somehow managed to miss out on all these even though I frequent the platform myself. Does anyone have the specific announcement or message? Just would like to see it for myself, even though I now confirm I don't see any of those options on my dashboard anymore. Most recent message was last week on yet another update to their Privacy Policy.

Never actually used any of those methods, always denied people wanting to buy with it too, they were always high risk to me and I guess even now too high risk for LBC. Surprised it didn't happen earlier actually.

Why its high risk for LBC , they are just providing trading platform, its the people who actually trade .Though  trade high volume suggest people also wont care about high risk as far as they are protected by  escrow services .

I guess it is OK if they removed the all card payment methods and it doesn't really matter because they still have some great method that is digital and faster than cards, I think they have some sort of issue's regarding card methods and surely banks are against Cryptocurrency well I think that is the reason why many in the community don't use cards but instead used their specific wallet or online payment method, There are many payment methods that you can sure use like Neteller, Transferwise, Moneygram, OKPay and many more that are still available in localbitcoins.com.

maybe they get a lot of  scam case and want to protect their user
i have similar experience in paxful related in hack acc i sell some bitcoin for paypal
the buyer request for dispute and in paxful the site dont hold my bitcoin in the end i lost my bitcoin
even user submit some proof like id or something it can be fake so you must be aware using some of that website

I can understand what happened to you is not a good experience, but still i would suggest you that p2p platforms are safe and secure as they provide escrow service , in which both buyer and seller are protected. The number of scams are very minute , if you consider the amount of trade happens using p2p platforms. You can also use coinbaazar.com , and m sure u will have a different experience.

Stolen funds and stolen cards are basically the major reasons for this. Most of the transactions only need the card information and boom, funds are transferred. Since BTC can't be traced easily, any card payment successfully used to purchase BTC can't be reversed. All this and many more are all the issues making BTC acceptance difficult in some places.

Not buying this excuse, credit card fraud happens with every commerce sector.  If stores stopped accepting credit cards and only took cash because of a small percent of stolen cards they would be idiots.  Its just the cost of doing business.  It is something you factor into your costs.  Only a small percentage of people are scammers, the bulk of your transactions will come from people with good intentions.

I had a very similar experience, except I started with the digging and so didn't send the guy any money.


Things change when we're dealing with a pseudonymous currency, where it's too easy for someone to get paid for stolen stuff and disappear.  This means you're attracting tons of scammers, and you're faced with a choice to either stop accepting risky payment methods, or introduce stringent KYC measures.

It's a good decision taken by LBC, and I pretty much agree with the reason you said.

I also would like to see some actions from LBC about the KYC thing that some traders ask on top of the verified LBC account one have, who is trying to deal with the trader.

Once I had a problem with one Neteller trader, and he asked my passport or ID for verification and I didn't give him as I don't trust anyone with my personal docs.
Later we didn't make any trade, but the trader left a negative rating on my profile saying that I didn't provide ID for verification.

Why do buyers need to provide personal docs to some unknown person while the buyers who already have a verified account on LBC? In my opinion it's totally unnecessary and I think LBC need to put some changes on their terms.

Exactly. That coupled with the fact that gift cards were always a high risk payment method probably prompted the change. Besides, AFAIK there's a lot more deals for selling/buying gift cards on LBC's main competitor Paxful (especially for anonymous deals) than LBC themselves.

Though, does anyone know if this is just a removal of a category of payments on Localbitcoins, or an outright ban on trading GCs?

If it's just removing the gift card category, then people are technically still able to trade gift cards under categories like "other online payments", or locally, through the platform. If it's an outright ban, how do they plan on enforcing it?

As you mentioned people will still try to trade cards under online and locally category , do u think LBC which ban such payment modes will encourage the trader or advertiser, i dont think so , they have a fair chance to suspend account (just my understanding.) So ideally people will switch to some other paltforms.

Were you the one to who were supposed to pay him via Neteller? If so, he didn't want to risk dealing with the risk of accepting a payment from someone with a hacked or stolen account. Verified LBC accounts can also be hacked or sold.

Yes, I was the one who supposed to pay via Neteller in return of BTC.

Thanks for the point!
Yes, this could be a reason for asking the personal docs, but still how can we trust a stranger with our personal docs? Those traders later may use our docs for an illegal activity...

What I was trying to say earlier in my post, that LBC should do something for all buyers & sellers so that there is no need for extra ID verification. If a solution introduced then both the buyer & seller will be safe imo.

After that incident, both the seller and I (buyer) had to stop trading in LBC due to the poor rating on our profiles. But both of us hadn't traded nor we scammed each other, still left a negative rating in both of the profiles.

In that case have u ever tried any other platform apart from LBC

There's no other way other than LBC closely cooperating with every payment service provider (Neteller, and dozens more). It's best just to use LBC for in person cash trades. If you make your own ads you can also buy/sell below/above market rates.

I have paxful account but I have never used it for trading or exchange.
I've first heard about coinbaazar from this thread, it seems a new platform. So it's too early to use it unless some time has passed and seen some good reviews.


Yes, I agree.


Currently I'm only using LBC for local exchanges... and that is smooth.


When I was doing trading in LBC, tbh I was doing pretty good.
But sometimes both balances in two wallets got imbalanced so it was required to do some quick trades to balance it.
Well, it's too late for me, the stupid rating fucked me up and I'm totally out of LBC trading. Don't know if I'll ever start trading on LBC or not.

Anyway, thanks for your inputs.  :)

I meant, it's high risk for me as a trader. And yes you're right, all that risk is transferred to traders and in general the experienced ones understand the risks and accept it without complaint (hence the almost ridiculous +Preev for those types of payments) but the smaller, newer ones generally are the ones to open disputes.

So it's not just the compliance requirement, IMO, but also the efficiency aspect. If a method is creating a lot of support requests for LBC (in terms of disputes), then I can see why they'd just remove it.

Escrow has to be released on receipt of payment, it doesn't prevent chargebacks or those cards failing down the line.

I agree with you.

We should understand one thing , out of few bad stuff , most the things that happens on these platforms are really helping people in one way or the other , be it trader or vendor and one thing we should realize ,,,paxful and LBC  monopoly , they suspend account ,charge high fees,  keep so much bonds , lets stop this together , tell everyone about this platform.

Just check coinbaazar.com , and then you will realize how good is that, i am using the platform and really happy , professional moderators , live help , low fee , no fees on incoming transactions

Now a days its happening everywhere , people are selling and buying verified accounts , dont know the exact reason , but i m surely using coinbaazar.com , its new and best as per my experience.

Is it so? I don't see people are complaining this is a problem since I am using this localbitcoins for long time but still I can see all the traders are giving any mode of payment.
Samsung one you might get the payment directly p a bank account or some do Google pay the other payment option I believe missed to check options completely out there.

I checked that we cannot create ad for most of gift card payments, thats why i switched to coinbaazar.com , also if we use paxful , it takes so much bonds , thats why its hard to earn and people become scammer because they cant earn much because of high fees.

i hate this site localbitcoin , its gate of scammers also their support is retard .... and give chance for strangers to access your identifying documents ...fall into disputes ..etc

i'm glad i escape from scam there . i pay way less fees on crypto exchanges that accept cards and still have peace of mind  ,