Bitcoin Forum

I got scammed on LocalBitcoins and started looking for new p2p trading platforms in South Africa and came across Vertex Market (https://vertex.market ) as they posted on BitcoinTalk. Here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5194938.new#new


Has anyone used them before? I have already made a couple of small trades which all worked but nothing over $100 because I’m a little scared putting in large amounts on a platform I just found.

The platform works great but I just want to know if anyone else has used it and if anything, bad has happened? It will probably be my go-to trading platform but need to confirm first.

Please show us a solid proof that you got scammed on localbitcoins. If you cannot provide any, I would assume that this post is just a bad attempt to advertise vertex. That is probably not the type of marketing that will help you gain users here. Try to play fair and just focus on the advantages you have over your competitors.

Use paxful If what you are looking for is a peer-to-peer exchange or exchange like localbitcoins. Vertex.market doesn't look too genuine to me. I Googled the names but I am not very convinced by what I saw. Besides, the exchange promotions on this forum are exaggerated https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5194938.new#new

Please give us solid prove? there is no solid prove and you are trying to promote vertex.market. Maybe OP is the paid member of vertex. He didn't attached solid proves but opened this topic.if you can't prove then you are lying.     

Okay so first, I am not trying to promote any company, I found the above linked post because I searched for bitcoin talk about mining in china and noticed the post by Vertex. We sell on localbitcoins and every so often, we have someone reverse PayPal funds and we have to deal with the backlash.

I suggested Vertex because it was the post I was on and it seems legit, I registered, tried it and as I said, I made a few trades that went well, but I am the type of guy that doesn't sleep because he has a couple hundred "What If's".

I am open to any suggestions, realistically we just want to be able to trade with PayPal and not risk loosing every few trades if you don't conduct a fair amount of KYC.

Thanks for the honest feedback, we really appreciate it. We looked at trying Paxful but on trustpilot.com they have a large portion (around 18%) of bad reviews so we were nervous.

I've used Paxful quite a bit over the years and I've never had any issues. I can vouch for Paxful. They put your money on hold in escrow until the trade goes through. So, it's really hard for someone to scam you on there. It's really safe. Especially if you only trade with people with good, positive feedback. Virtually no chance of getting scammed.

the localbitcoin is a large p2p platform, if you are fooled you can report it, but don't expect returns if you have already made a transaction. I have never used Vertex Market, but some of my friends have used it and it is safe. I always use local exchangers in my country, and the exchanges are safe so far.

Is this thread one of this? Don't get tricked by hidden spam on this forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190848.0).

A newbie trying to hide his trick by asking questions about a certain services which majority of us never heard before. Sorry, but this looks like it, so I don't like to fall for this kind of trick here.

I'm quite surprised to see you go with Vertex if you did this. Vertex is less famous and not many users use it, which obviously means that there are no reviews about them yet. What a brave decision (I hope?).

It is true that I have to be aware of that I have never seen this forum discussing Vertex exchanges and I have just looked at this thread, but I wonder why the OP wants to try this exchange, there are still many safer exchanges? Don't you think again?

Sorry to hear that. As CEO of Vertex itself I know that this could also happen on Vertex if you do not pay attention to instructions (not accusing you of doing so).
The most common is the PayPal refund by a customer. This is why we insist on having the buyer add a payment reference and must validate his account on paypal with us first.

So far, not a single refund has been grated to scammers with this approach, however, if you just accept payment coming from a random account, you might get scammed.

The same applies for localbitcoins or any other p2p platform. I would assume that most scammers are active on every single platform, including Vertex but they can't do a PayPal scam if you follow instructions.

Regarding being scared to trade more than 100. please feel free to contact me in a PM and maybe I can help you overcome that uncertainty.

I can see alot of people suggesting Paxful for OP but the truth is that irrespective of the platform you trade, you run the risk of getting scammed if you fail to abide strictly by the rules sets by the administrators of the platform. I have seen people get scammed on Paxful despite the various protective measures put in place and the simple reason for that is not following the rule. I seen situations where people who felt the charges from Paxful is too much, or they felt they could get a better deal by having the discussion outside Paxful such as WhatsApp so they have a good deal, some would even be scoped to inform Paxful escrow to release the coins claiming fiat transfer is due to network among all issues. So, my advise is you should stick to the rule and you will be fine.

I don't know about Vertex but I have come across some Scam reports about LocalBitcoins. You can check the Scam reports on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7ohp1a/beware_localbitcoinscom_scammers/), Trustpilot (https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/5d700090f0186907108c376b) and CoinCrunch (https://coincrunch.in/2018/10/23/two-btc-scam-localbitcoins/). As LocalBitcoin is a peer to peer service, we are not sure how safe it is? But recently it has introduced AML and KYC policies, which may reduce the Scams.

On Vertex for example, there is no communication at all between the two parties. A chat just makes things more complicated. We know that from over 10 years of OTC trading experience, of course not just crypto.

Let us take PayPal as example. we do only allow a BUYER to use a paypal account he verified that he also has access to its email address. reducing the risk of "dispute: i have not made transaction". Then the BUYER is asked to put a reference code to the payment instrcution and ONLY SEND AS A FRIEND (also to avoid ridiculous fees of PayPal).

Now the seller, upon confirming that he received the funds has to confirm that

a) the account the money is coming from is the one we tell him it should be coming from
b) the buyer has put the reference code
c) has sent as a friend (not always available)

if a) and b) are not met, the seller should just refund the money and not confirm he received it. so simple, yet some users might then ignore our advise and go ahead.

In general, it is much better to use bank transfers. We have not experienced a single scam attempt with bank wires, not saying it wouldn't be possible.

Dude forget vertex go to Binance where you can trade like a professional. I don't advise people to use small cryptocurrency exchanges these days due to so many numbers of exit scams that were done by the small exchanges. You should avoid using small exchanges to avoid getting scammed by them.

I don't recommend P2P exchange simply because it is too risky there are plenty of safe alternatives out there and some people would still proceed using P2P exchange. Even if there's AML and KYC policies doesn't mean it's 100% safe there are plenty of datas sold in the darknet and they could just use that to fake the KYC. Not that I'm advertising them but website like coinbase or binance is a better alternativem and is a lot more safer than dealing with individual who you don't even know how their face is.
When you are using P2P it's your ability to choose the person to make a deal what matters most. Even the platform where you want to make a deal doesn't really matter that much localbitcoin or vertex basically the same thing.

Honestly, I feel p2p is on a long run much safer. First of all, you keep your funds in your wallet at any given time. Then you can keep your privacy, but not using a centralized exchanges deposit and kyc combination.

I agree with you with KYC is not really making it very much safer. in fact, you don't need the darknet to buy fake accounts on almost any platform, just go into some telegram groups and you see many offers there.

Calling crypto exchanges to be the solution for the average john doe, is like saying that everybody should get their foreign currency when they travel through a FX trading platform. Unfortunately, 98% of the people (maybe the ones who dont' care about bitcoin right now??) do not want to know what an exchange is or what an an order book or a market order are

Yeah probably sort of, why don’t they just direct their pure intentions than creating a fabricated issues just to catch readers attention. Considering it a fail marketing when they use this kind of strategy and expect readers will less interested in this kind of company tricks.

Sorry to hear about it. But, how do you get scammed on LocalBitcoins?

Isn't localbitcoins a place where in order to trade bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, you have to meet the other person face to face in real life? Haven't used it in a while but I imagine if you meet someone in person you don't let him/her just walk away until the trade is completed.

It doesn't matter what place it is, one should never buy fake accounts of any platform because you're asking for problems.... it's against their terms and it's even illegal by law so you're not doing yourself a favor there.

I rather just avoid dealing with any platform that subjects people to KYC verification than to buy some shitty accounts exposing me to so many unnecessary risks. I know it's tempting because it looks so easy, but don't do that....

Nowadays there is so much going on locally that depending on what country you are from, you should be able to relatively easy find someone to exchange Bitcoin and potentially some altcoins with.

This person probably did a PayPal transaction and reversed it directly after. It happens a lot. You can also be sending as a friend and as you send the person can cancel the transaction.

There are various ways you can do it, but no matter the platform, you need to be more careful and ensure you are doing the correct action at all times.

They took that option away - I would assume its a PayPal issue. Honestly not sure how else it could work out scamming someone.

May I ask how the bank transfer can so easily be refunded?
We never had any case so far with bank transfer (international or domestic) on Vertex.

Also be aware that a bank transfer, once accepted by receiving bank and added onto your account, is completed and theoretically, irreversible with only couple of exceptions.

see below:
"
The only available options for reversing a completed transfer are if the sending bank made a mistake, if the payment order was a duplicate of a previous order, or if the order is for an amount greater than the beneficiary was entitled to receive under the transfer. In those cases, the beneficiary's bank will recover the funds improperly paid to the beneficiary.
"

Maybe it varies from country to country, but above is for swift.

If you don't want to be scammed I would suggest using local vendors that has your own currency and connections to your bank. Most of the time (almost all of the time) if they have a automatic website like that they are legit, even if you are not sure you can check online and see their results.

Maybe in Africa it is not quite common yet but that means even better because you can start one yourself which would be super profitable, there is 4 in my country hence why I can't really make one but if my country had none I would have get all the loans I can to start a new one because I know one exchange in my country and we talk with the owner time to time and they are super profitable. So either you would find a local exchange that does your currency or you find a good business opportunity.

Yeah you are right but he seems like he was just promoting it, it was a new tricked now to create fud/advertising. He didn't even provide proof of his accusations.

Anyway, if ever it is real, then he should contact the support and not here is he should provide proof so that users can be warned if it is real.

True, but remember this goes against P2P trading. People want trading options like this, so they do not have to worry about giving KYC information to providers. Marketplaces are great for people that want to hide their identity and trade locally or internationally.

There are also way too many providers out there currently so your marketing budget will need to be huge and your product needs to be highly unique.

The problem with this sort of conservative approach that avoid KYC verification, you miss out on the convenience and inclusion that apps like this bring to the table. It's like being an lonely outlier, an outcast of society. While some will say that's not bad, you can't deny the fact that by definition alone, it is not a favourable position to be in.

Buying fake accounts is one thing, but avoiding personal KYC in general is another thing (extremist!).

I think avoiding KYC is actually a good thing because it shows that people care about their private information, which is something you can't erase from an exchange's server once you give it to them.

Another thing is that we have seen various exchanges outsource KYC verification to third party services most people haven't ever heard of, but when we do hear about them, it's because they got hacked and a lot of data has been stolen.

I can't stress enough how important it is that people should value their private information more. It's not in your best interest that criminals abuse your name or that verification services sell your information to third parties.

Ask yourself, what did you choose the new exchanges to trade for? While their volumes are very low and the community is small, it would be a risk for an exchange to be broke soon.
If you do not feel safe, you should trade at large exchanges to be safer. I suggest you trade on Binance or Huobi, because I have never had any problems trading there.

The issue is that people do not take their privacy seriously enough. If we really cared about privacy, people would not be using Facebook. I would stress that Financial privacy is probably the most important thing out of everything. So platforms like Bisq and Vertex really do matter.

Possibilities of getting scammed in local bitcoin is very very less unless you accepted a payment which is reversible like paypal.Is this way you got scammed because I don't know what actually the vertex market means.

You can report the user to localbitcoin support staff if he is still using the same account.

It must have been a PayPal transaction. Its the only potential way of me seeing a scam actually taking place.

If anyone doing paypal transactions on localbitcoin then they should see the trade and feedback history of trader,if he got high number of confirmed trades and pro bade then we are completely safe.But also need to remember paypal restricted crypto transactions so its not advisable to use that method anyway.

I also believe scams and frauds become successful only due to the ignorant and careless nature of common people. They are not very serious rather do not consider every related bit of information important. There is nothing bad in using any platform unless you provide more than what you should. The most secure way is to go for secure options in every domain and provide as less info as possible.

Simple as that!

Sorry if this is true but I must say this is not the right way to draw trafic to vertex. You were scammed on Localbitcoins how when can you show prove? Every platform both centralized and decentralized has different compititors and they compite by improving on various  strategies either by reducing fee or any other way not by tarnishing the image of an innocent organization even unknown to them. I think this thread has to be deleted by the moderators if you have no concrate prove to back you fallacious statement.

Using a bank wire of a P2P platform is the way to go, if you want to use fiat. As far as opening your own exchange goes, there are surely some exchanges that operate out of Africa? Just a quick google search turned up quite a few in South Africa alone. Otherwise, using a marketplace available internationally is another good option.

as a CEO of Vertex I have also clearly stated here that it doesn't mater if evidence or not but that it can happen on Vertex, Paxful, localbitcoins, you name it! all of those platforms try the best to protect users but if users do not follow the instructions by the platform, well then scammers have a feast.

i think the classic way is the simple PayPal charge back.

Since I am obviously biased, i won't highlight any advantages to each other between the platforms though

Thought it would be valuable to mention but I was selling on Vertex and the buyer reversed the PayPal transaction, Vertex refunded me 80% of the transaction. The support is really good, they helped me as soon as I opened the support ticket.

Great to hear :)

Not all scams are scammed, even though they are scams. Because there are so many sides to investing, we have made a lot of profit. In many cases, those who try to get up and down quickly are scammed too, so we need to trade with the good guys and see how many opportunities there are. And those that should be exchanged for good and popular side are less scammed.

What do you mean by this? Coz you're basically telling us that Scams are scams, but not Scams are scams.


Investment can be in many form, here in cryptocurrency you need to do your own research where you could get the most of profit you want in any coin. I'm not really a fan of p2p exchanges, I don't even use Paxful although there are people in here that says it is a good exchange coz the fact that it is a p2p already worries me. I know nothing about the vertex but based on what the majority it is a scam exchange, maybe the OP did just encounter an error or somewhat a bug.

So you guys want to shill for vertex? How a trading platform will refund to an individual when a trader reversed his paypal! Its not possible on a legit exchange because they are making only very small amount for every trades if 10% trades turns into scams then that platform will goes into huge loss in no time.Wise decision will be stopping paypal transactions in their exchange.

I don't think using Paypal in exchange is a good idea, scammers are everywhere. They often open dispute to be refunded and make my paypal account frozen/ limited.
You still lost 20% and it is a large amount in a big transaction.

You are right. You have to know that Bitcoin is a very risky business and you shouldn't be careless when you're trading Bitcoin, you have to be very careful with it.

I have seen someone that wanted to buy Bitcoin through LocalBitcoin but ended up getting scammed. He tried to blame it on LocalBitcoin but after I discovered the story of what happened, then he was the one that made the mistake. He wanted to buy bitcoin and the seller told him to contact his WhatsApp number, and after he contacted the seller, the seller sent him a payment address that's different from what's on LocalBitcoin and he stupidly paid in money and that's it, he lost it. Instead of him to make use of LocalBitcoin escrow service, he decided to go through WhatsApp to avoid the fees and that's how he lost his money. People really have to be careful.