Bitcoin Forum

I bought an amount of BTC from a stranger and made my payment in cash! I checked to see if the BTC was available and if they were, after a day they just disappeared. Does somebody know anything about this? What happened? What is this situation called or something like that?

Explain yourself better. Where do you have your wallet? On your mobile or a computer? What kind of wallet is it?

I would bet that it is in a centralised entity and somehow they phished to show you the amount.

What amount are we talking about?

We can't help you without much information.

1. What wallet were you using?

2. Were you using an exchange wallet(Coinbase, Binance, etc) or a non-custodial wallet(BlueWallet, Electrum, etc)?

3. Was the transaction confirmed with at least 2 confirmations?

Try to resync your wallet if it's possible. Check your address on blockchair. If it says that there were no transactions then nothing must be done if you bought your BTC from a stranger, he won't give you money back anyway.

Maybe post the transaction so we can look into it.

Perhaps you downloaded some fake app which has a wallet which is compromised. And as soon as it receives a payment it’s sent elsewhere.

Did the transaction confirm? Maybe they did a double spend but this is rare.

Why I’m feeling like you bought the wallet from the person? Op can you please confirm that you didn’t buy any private keys to a wallet that have a balance and bought some actual bitcoin that was sent to a new wallet that you created and sent to the person? If your answer is the latter then follow the advice that has been provided above and provide either your wallet address or the tx Id.

It sounds like you accepted an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction, and got scammed. Bitcoin fees are quite high at the moment, which gives the seller/scammer plenty of time to use RBF to replace the transaction by another one.

Possibility if the seller is a scammer: double spend.

Possibility due to your ignorance: downloading phishing wallet, clicking random link, share private key, etc.

I hope the wallet or exchange you using were glitched because there are some sites like that e.g. Coinbase or Blockchain.com. You need to use better wallet e.g. Electrum or Bluewallet.

We are in 2023 going to 2024, though your complaint lack adequate information to properly digest the situation and give proper solution or advice to avoid such occurrence next time, the only thing of sense I could grab here is you stating you bought Bitcoin from a stranger, we are no longer in 2010 to 2014 when buying Bitcoin was a hurdle for many due to lack of trusted exchange platforms, why would you opt to buying Bitcoin from a stranger when you should have bought directly from the exchange, several exchanges offer fiat deposit through p2p or direct deposit ..

Whether it be centralized or non-custodial wallet you used to received those bitcoins, what I believe you saw was the incoming transaction, and seeing that you are a newbie the person you bought from probably reversed the transaction..

Or another possible scenerio is, if you meet the person whom you bought the Bitcoin from physically(since you said you paid him in cash), then recall if you gave this person your phone, the person must have used that opportunity to copy and save your wallet private key on his own device, and immediately after sending you the Bitcoins you bought, he went behind you back to login into your wallet though with your private keys, then withdrew those coins back..

You gotta be very vigilant and careful in this space man .

The wrong thing that you did was to trust the stranger and at the same time not even confirm with your eyes that they've paid you. Basing on your limited information, it seems like this is a transaction done in person. Maybe @LoyceMobile is right, they could've used RBF to redirect the destination address of the bitcoin back to them. As the others have pointed out, post your address so people can see what you're talking about or even the conversations with the person prior to the bitcoin purchase.

Payment in cash? You mean that you have actually met the stranger in person and you gave him paper cash?
How does he look like? You could call the police and tell them about this scam. You could describe how the stranger looked like and police might try to find him. Can you post screenshots of your Bitcoin wallet? What kind of BTC wallet are you using?
Is there an outgoing transaction in your BTC wallet(BTC sent to another address, not received)? Were the coins transferred to another BTC address or they are just missing?

You mean one confirmation. Block reorgs are extremely rare and if they happen the transaction probably just goes back to the mempool and gets confirmed immediately in the next block instead.

If the transaction was visible for a full day and then it disappeared, that means the other party used a very low fee, because most normal fees would make the transaction confirmed within a few hours max.

Never send cash payment before the transaction is confirmed during P2P exchange, it is a common scam.

According to OP question, the attacker likely double spent the coin using RBF is what that likely happened.

You are correct, but I just want to point out that it does not mean that the transaction can be seen by the victim the whole day, the bad actor can immediately use RBF to cancel or invalidate the transaction anytime that he knows the victim has paid already.

It looks like you approved an unconfirmed BTC transaction and released your money to the stranger.

By the way, why are you doing business with a stranger? If you can confirm that this person is a Stranger, why do business with them? As a crypto newbie, you can't tell me that you don't know about crypto exchanges where you can safely buy your Bitcoin with Fiat.

I think there is more to this story than you are telling us, I think this stranger promised to sell the BTC for a cheaper rate to you, probably a 50% off, because what can make you buy Bitcoin from a stranger?

Can you provide screenshot of you and this stranger's conversation?

Your wallet address? Or transaction harsh? What is the name of the wallet you use? A Double spending attack happens because of an attractive offer, coming from a stranger,  in your case this is the only thing that makes sense to me.

Sorry to say, no one on this forum can help you get your money back, it's gone, at least learn from your mistake and avoid strangers in the future.

The case you are facing is very complicated, there is not much that forum members can do to help you without being equipped with valid information about the transaction process that occurred. Why buy it from strangers, isn't there a centralized exchange that you can use to buy Bitcoin.?
Next time, never trust anyone you just met through social media, they are scammers who always target their victims in any way. That's how they work, after getting what they want, they will just disappear without a trace.

Seems like that scenario.

Maybe, since the mempool is super low and OP looks like he doesn't know anything about bitcoin and so on, the seller chose a super low fee, let it sit for some hours cause he knows it won't confirm anyway, then double spent it and the money was gone.

As a newbie it is really important to educate yourself better how bitcoin and crypto currency works. If you don't then you open yourself up to the possibility of getting scammer. There are a lot of black sheep out there.

Where ever you found the scammer, try to get him to sell you something again, make a trap with a new account or something like that. If he bites you can get him and possibly get your money back. And don't go alone, bring some backup with you.

It's hard to identify what went wrong without more facts. Your issue sounds familiar. It reminds me of "double spend."

An attempt to spend the same Bitcoin twice is called a "double spend." After checking your balance, did you observe how many confirmations? A deal isn't really "final" until it's been confirmed more than once. If zero, it might be reversed around.

If you ever trade peer-to-peer, especially with a stranger, wait multiple confirmations (my standard is 6) before considering a transaction complete. Be careful and check again and again

When you say they coins disappeared, do you mean you can't see your coin from your wallet dashboard or coins can not be seen on address even after using an explorer??

If coins disappeared from wallet dashboard try resyncing it as this is something normal if wallet isn't oftenly used...but if coins don't even show up on an explorer unfortunately your contact might have pulled a fast one on you.

One of the disadvantages of bitcoin >>>"RBF" which is a good and bad feature about having this feature as it makes double spending so easy.

With the current low transaction fees do we still have transactions taking all day to get confirmed thought such a tx should be confirmed within a few hours at the most.

No one can tell you what is happening to you with your short sentences. At the very least, you need to provide us with some evidence such as the wallet you used and the wallet address you used to receive the bitcoins...Furthermore, why don't you use an exchange to buy bitcoin and instead buy it from a stranger? You are just a newbie and are becoming the target of many scammers, you should be more careful when talking and dealing with those strangers.
I don't know if it's a big amount of money or not but my condolences for your loss.

You have been scammed mate, never deal with strangers because even people that you know can scam you talk more of a stranger that you don't know where to get him. Next time buy bitcoin from an exchange and use p2p method. There is nothing one can do to help your situation, this is a hard lesson for you. Always make sure that the transaction is confirmed before send the funds.

Without any informations further, we can not know what exactly is happening.
You need to tell us where you buy btc and how much satoshi you bought and if necessary, you can paste your wallets here so we can check it for you to see what is happening.
But if you do not want to explain more, we can conclude that they scammed you and there is nothing you can do because they already disappeared and you do not know where they are going and who they are.
We can advise you to be more careful next time and make sure you get a seller with a good rating if you buy bitcoin at a third-party service.

You can do a business with a stranger in some cases. People on this forum can be strangers to themselves, but that does not mean they can not trade bitcoin. If you have a reputable escrow, you can proceed in a bitcoin and fiat exchange with the stranger. Another reason I can do a business with a stranger is if the stranger prefer to send first and agreed for the transaction to have at least one confirmation before I should send money.

Always check things on blockchain using an explorer, never rely on third party wallets/apps/sites : judging by the poor info provided most likely we are talking about a double spending case.

You do not have to check the blockchain explorer for your transaction when you are not using a paper wallet or wallet that you do not want to connect to the internet, online wallets have a transaction history and you can be able to know if the transaction is confirmed or not on the wallet transaction history. What you can say is that he should check and recheck that the transaction is confirmed already before accepting the transaction.

If it's not broadcasted on the network then it didn't happened. Unless you did this through offchain like the seller's account from an exchange and your account from the same exchange. That means that if it's just shown to you that the balance was there, that doesn't mean that it was transferred to you. Maybe that guy just shown you his walllet and that's what he has sold to you but if that's the case, that's not in your custody because he still knows the private keys of that wallet. But it's best if you can add more details on how did actually happened. Either hacked, setup by the seller or you're completely have no idea what the heck happened and you can't explain it.

Sure you are right, but ss as we know basically nothing about what original poster used I was referring to the most general case ( for example he might have used an exchange address or a gambling site deposit address or whatever) so to be 100% on the safe side check the most public and least manipulable infos available out there to check if a transaction actually went trough.

OP said that the coins he received have disappeared from the wallet "after a day" . Doable spending  in this case could be only possible if the coming transaction that brought those coins to his wallet was not confirmed during that day otherwise  doable spending could not be possible. Thus OP should tell us whether that initial transaction with BTC he bought was confirmed and  if yes, whether his wallet contains  outgoing transaction that steals his btc.

How come you do such business with a stranger? You manage to confuse them to pay up first before you send them money and they fooled you because they know you don't know too much about Bitcoin transaction.

This is what happens to people that believe they have the money, but not want to venture into having knowledge first, now after you become a victim you find your way to this forum seeking for help.

Unfortunately, it's too late, the scammer use your lack of knowledge to rob you in a broad daylight, next time always put learning first in everything you want to do.

Only release funds after the Bitcoin transaction is confirmed with at least 2 confirmations, you should ignore buying Bitcoin for now and instead spend time to know about Bitcoin itself and it's wallet operational, sorry for your loss.

Copy the Bitcoin address from which you received that balance in blockchair.com. The balance that appears here is your balance. If the currencies are present, then it is either a synchronization problem or you made a mistake. If they are not present, then either you have been defrauded (the old transaction has become invalid) or Someone gained access to your private key.

You can check your transaction on block explorers, so that you get information about that from different nodes.

It's possible that the node your wallet is connected to is not synced and you want to get information from other nodes.
It's possible that the node your wallets is connected to has dropped your transaction from its mempool for some reason and you want to know whether other nodes have done the same thing or they still have your transaction in their mempool.

If I have received a transaction and it doesn't show in my wallet, the first thing I will do is check the transaction in block explorers (This is assuming I don't care about my privacy).

RBF is a two-edged sword, just like most other things in cryptocurrency.

It's primary purpose is to help you confirm a stuck transaction that is caught in a deluge of other higher-paying transactions, but it can also be used for scamming purposes.

Overall I think that pretty much any software or item can be abused for the purpose of scamming others anyway. I mean, even telephone calls.

Going a bit offtopic here, sorry for this, may you please explain how checking block explorers can compromise our privacy? Guess you are referring to your ISP knowing you are checking a specifical address on block explorer ( it doesn't imply you control that addy) or is there anything else ?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with transacting with a stranger once you know what you’re doing. In this case is only the lack of proper knowledge by the OP that caused him this. A learned person will have at least opted to get at least one block confirmation before giving out the money. With OP’s lack of knowledge it would have even been easier to get scammed through exchanges self because he would still done same thing


I don’t think this is necessary because it is like impeding into OP privacy by asking for such informations. Even if he shows the screenshot here there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it, the only thing is he should personally back track how he transacted with the stranger and learn a lesson from that. I hope it wasn’t a big amount though

There is more to this, it is not about the transaction being confirmed or not as the OP indicates that the money is there but disappears after about a day. That's enough for 3 confirmations to have completed if it's really Bitcoin we are talking about.

And the way the OP sounded seems it has happened more than once, which reminds me of a similar post someone posted a while ago, but they tend to abandon the post without a reply if more information about the transaction is demanded, even by tech-savvy here.

This makes me believe that there is more to this. It's either the OP is looking for a scamming way of this kind after hearing it happens or the platform used is not a legit BTC related, but a fake.

Do you mean that you approached a total stranger in person and gave him/her the cash he was owed for selling you Bitcoin? And if so, where was the wallet delivered? Is it in the non-custodial exchange or app wallet?

But is there something wrong with what you did if you gave this unknown stranger money? I hope you inquired on this forum or with a buddy before paying. So, where did you make your payment? You may purchase Bitcoin in a variety of methods without ever having to introduce yourself to a stranger.

As far as I can tell, that style is the creation of a con artist who has abused your gullibility in this Bitcoin sector.

Before you give anybody money for Bitcoin, please always make sure that the transaction that was made received enough confirmations on the block before you pay them for it. There is a reason why. If you check a lot of local exchangers, or maybe you try selling your coin P2P to exchangers, you will notice that they always have a certain confirmation number that is required before payment is disbursed to you, these are for safety reasons. So be careful next time and try to follow these rules to be safe.

I don't know why people trust strangers in such a case when you are buying a Bitcoin, Once people get scammed then after that start looking but why do they not listen to the other person's advice?

Op you are scammed but don't know which type. If you used some other wallet then I think after confirmation the holders stole your bitcoin from your wallet. But as you said you met him in person and gave him cash then may he take your phone and copy your private keys which will make him easily steal your fund from your wallet.

With using a block explorer, you reveal your IP address to them. If you enter your address in a block explorer and they share such information with chain analysis companies, it may helpful to be used for tracking you, especially if you enter your address many times and you use different block explorers.

Checking the balance of an address on a block explorer doesn't mean you own that address, but it may give some hint to chain analysis companies.

I see, many thanks. So what are most viable solution to bypass this risk?  Do you think using a VPN or Tor browser or better both is enough or what? Or simply by checking dozens and dozens of addresses a day to mislead ( stupid idea yes but its the first thing coming to my mind when I read your answer lol)

If you're not using a VPN all the time, it's convenient to keep a Tor browser open to access sites without exposing your IP address.
It just feed them the wrong information by looking up random addresses, but even that might tell them something about yourself.

My wallet connect automatically to available nodes. I have not checked my address balance or transaction before on an explorer. On the wallet that I am using and on the wallet knowledgeable people are telling people to use like Electrum, there are many nodes there and if some are not working, some other ones will be working.

This has not happened to me before but that would be the next thing someone can do. Your anonymity is not lost if you use tor. It is just one address.

Op, did you confirm the BTC in your wallet before making the payment? If yes, maybe you could have clicked on a phishing link that allowed someone to have access to your wallet or it could be that same person who sold the BTC to you who still stole from you without your knowledge because you don't understand how Bitcoin transaction is done and also believed he can not steal from you. Op, after the person finishes sending you the Bitcoin did he take your phone from you or send a wallet address to your phone? you can share your Bitcoin wallet address let's take a look at it too. Try and update your wallet if it appears.

I've heard stories of people who allowed the seller to help them set up a wallet in person and then bought coins from them and the money disappeared because the seller came back home, accessed the buyer's wallet and moved funds.

I've also heard stories of people buying wallets from others, like they wanted to buy bitcoin and the seller would add a hardware wallet or a phone with the wallet on top of it, claiming it to be a gift for the buyer that will also speed up the transaction because the buyer will get the whole source wallet, without having to wait for any confirmations and pay fees.

Looks like we'll have to wait for OP to come back and explain this.
 

As mentioned above by LoyceV, you can use TOR browser whenever you want to check your addresses balance or a transaction on block explorers.
And to protect your privacy better, you can use a new TOR circuit every time you want to check an address or a transaction on a block explorer.

You can also run your own node, so that you have a full copy of the blockchain and unconfirmed transaction. In this way, you can check any transaction or address without relying on any third parties.


You are right about electrum, but we don't know whether OP is using electrum or another wallet.

Looks like you were scammed using an image edited and sent to you as proof and once you check your balance it's obviously not there because they just let you see the edited one, not the actual site that indicates your total BTC balance. I guess the main reason for this is a lack of basic knowledge regarding bitcoins because if you know how to check everything before sending them your payment, you wouldn't be complaining about this right now. Looks like your information about it lacks some key info, just like the other said, we wanted some more enlightenment in order to warn others as well.

Trading with people is not a big deal because there will always be a way to prevent fraud. But in OP's case, he is newbie and lacks knowledge in all aspects, so choosing to trade on the floor will reduce risk compared to trading with a complete stranger. They can use tricks that a newbie will not know and easily scam him. As a newbie, I always give advice that using an exchange will help them feel more secure in buying and selling.

I saw your latest thread where you mentioned the deposit you made on Binance, which is confusing. If you use a Binance address to receive bitcoin from the seller, it won't show on your balance until you get confirmation on the blockchain. I assume you checked the transaction on the blockchain, which was an unconfirmed transaction; they probably doubled the amount. So I believe you have been deceived by the scammer. Why haven't you used Binance P2P instead of dealing with scammers?

OP might be a bit mixed up here. When you get money on Binance, they give you an address (an address that bianance control, rember not your keys not your coins). But then, Binance moves that money to another Binance address (Binance Hot wallet). Don't worry, your Binance account should still have that money, even though if you check that address on some explorer, it'll look empty.

At least that may confuse to some new users like him

Did you know that the targets of scammers are newcomers to the crypto field, newbies are the most delicious food for scammers to drain their money with all their tricks. You have just become a victim of scammers, this is what happens if you are too trusting of people you have just met. Can you share your honesty here starting from the first time you started communicating with them until you had the courage to buy some Bitcoin from them?

Maybe you are tempted by the cheap prices they offer so you ignore the Exchange as a safe place to buy Bitcoin. Your lost balance cannot be returned, because of this incident you have lost a certain amount of money permanently. Be careful, there are lots of scammers who are targeting their victims, if you want to get Bitcoin and safe storage, ask for advice from members of this forum.

In his other thread, the OP said that he received the BTC on Binance. So there is no chance of any transaction being replaced by RBF etc because binance will only show you the balance once it is confirmed.

I see this as a case where either the OP moved the funds from spot to funding or any other wallet or something else. If he had a balance in the binance account, and no one else had access to his Binance account, the balance could not just get vanish.

It would be good if the OP could show us the transaction history so we can see if the balance ever arrived and was later withdrawn by him or anyone having access to his account.

Bitcoin deals greatly on trust and while trading with an unknown individual where there isn’t a third party to act as escrow involved, you’ve got to exercise a great deal of caution, knowing that this individual is a stranger, this individual don’t have much to lose once cash have been delivered to him/her and it’s your responsibility to ensure that, your coin is deposited safely.

Bitcoin transactions are irreversible but, this becomes the case only when there is at least one confirmation on the transaction. This is the only time when you can bank of the irreversible nature of the space to act in your interest.

In most cases especially when your using a custodial exchange like Binance and depend on its mail system or perhaps wallet history to display information on a transaction, it’s normal that, you would get notification on a pending transaction upon initiation of the transaction by the buyer.
That doesn’t mean you’ve been sent the coin. It simply means, there is a detection of a transaction on the bitcoin or Binance network. Untill a confirmation is done on it, the individual could attempt to double spend and cancel the transaction.

You ought to be more careful and can count this as a lose to experience.