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I have been unraveling things lately, and most especially scammers' new tricks and how they trick people into releasing their assets without paying for them. Below is my experience with a Bybit vendor lately.

A few days ago, I placed a sell order of a certain amount of USDT through Bybit. While waiting for the buyer to make payment, the buyer ticked paid and did not make any payment for over 30 minutes, and the trade time elapsed, and I had to chat with the buyer. What the buyer told me was that he had made a payment, but the transaction failed, and I asked the buyer if the transaction failed, have you tried it again, or use another bank to try to make the payment? He ignored, only for him to quickly tell me to cancel the deal, and I told him I can not do that, except that he would need to do that from his end.

Something happened that I noticed very fast, and I almost fell for it. This was my first time experiencing such, and one needs to be careful while going through the cancellation process.

At first, he initiated the cancellation, for which I got an in-app notification to approve. I did that, and immediately I got another notification, which I almost clicked to grant access, and if I had done that, my asset would have gone without me noticing what I did. It was the little write-up notice at the top of the second prompt that caught my attention, which made me pause. I had to read it, and to my greatest surprise, it came as a reason for the transaction cancellation, which I will also have to give consent to, and it states that the buyer already made payment and that I have received the payment transaction, which surprised me at first because the buyer did not make any payment, and immediately I rejected it and that was how the deal was closed. If I had clicked accepted, maybe I would have lost my assets, and this aspect not many people would notice while in a haste to initiate another transaction.

This transaction taught me something, and that was patience. Although I do exercise patience whenever I am doing a trade, but this particular trade I was a bit hasty because I wanted to sort out some things, so I needed the money urgently to complete it up and I encountered such. Ordinarily, I would have clicked it without reading it, as it was still the cancellation process, and that was how I would have lost my assets to the scammer. I could not screenshot it, as that was the least I expected at that moment, and I needed to sort things out, as time was not on my side.

In all, we should be very careful and alert whenever we are doing transactions, especially trades of this nature, as I have encountered. Lastly, we should be patient enough to take our time to properly see and read the prompt we get whenever we are in a hurry, especially when it is a cancelled trade, so we do not mistakenly accept a wrong option against what really transpired, as some people are suffering because of things of this nature.

The truth is as far as it concerns an exchange or P2P there will always be scam involved in one way or the other and the only way to stay safe is to be very conscious and understand exactly how to deal with these vendors else you fall a victim especially if you are in a hurry.

I think it's best for the board to have something like a P2P orientation and discussion thread where things like these can be discussed extensively.

Emphasis on caution, as some traders may feel too over-confident that they have done P2P transactions many times on an exchange they use without error and for that reason abandon caution to the wind. Regardless of the number of times that a trader has carried out P2P transaction, there is a need to always be cautious with a new transaction you want to do. You will never know when a new P2P scam method is started if you are not cautious and observant.

Anyways, this scam method in exchange p2p has been discussed before either last week or a couple of weeks ago. If i find the thread i will attach the link to this post. We all just need to be very smart while doing a p2p transaction because we have witnessed many complaints by members of the local board about their experiences on p2p platforms. Only this year alone members of the local board has opened above 10 threads which discussed about p2p scams.

Edit: here is the link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5562198.msg65967008#msg65967008

I think a thread has been dedicated for p2p discussions already, maybe it should be pinned so that it doesn't disappear from the first page of the local board.

I agree with your overall point, and yeah being cautious is the most important thing right now as we have absolutely nothing to do to put a final end to these P2P scam. Sincerely speaking these issue about P2P scam is getting on my nerves and The rate at which because are being scammed it's so alarming, but the thing there is we would keep sharing information for people to know the strategy they are using as they are also implementing more so we all need to be very careful while trading P2P and just as @ mia Chloe have said that we shouldn't be too hasty while trading P2P but to settle down and go through the process.


Yeah, I think that's going to be a good initiative because the scam report more especially in P2P trade is way too much which there is supposed to be a special board where newbies will be giving the best insight as regards to how  P2P trade works and also the risk that is involved and ways in which they can minimize the risk as I can't possibly say about prevention because surely they would want to come up with new strategy if the 1st 2nd is well known.

If I may suggest to us, first of all, Bybit users are the ones that are used to all these nonsense, other merchants from other exchanges do not do that, until I tried to make use of gate.io exchange before I know what have been missing already about my ot having alternative exchange all this while, and their price rate is very much better than Bybit.
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Try some of these advise and see how things could change with your experience.

1. Confirm the said amount being received before releasing.
2. Stop giving them your number on Bybit, that makes them misbehave the more.
3. On the chat, place a strong warning that you don't accept incomplete payment.
4. Filter your ads and only select ads from verified users.

Omo that was really close, all these scammers are really getting more and more smart these days, and this kind of thing can literally happen to anybody ooo, and they are always trying to take advantage of the moment, when you're in a hurry to complete a trade. And the way these scammers always find a new way to trick people into clicking or confirming things without thinking twice is very surprising.

Let this be a reminder to all P2P traders: don’t be in a rush and always read through every notification carefully before you click confirm.

As time goes by, every fraudster is adopting new methods. With time, they are creating new traps and thus trapping many people in their fraud trap. To get rid of all this, what we have to do is to be aware. If a person is not aware, then he may lose all his money by doing something else by mistake. So read each step carefully before going to the next step and then go to the next step. In this way, if a person takes a step with awareness, then no one will be able to trap that person in the fraud trap. Awareness is the key to keeping yourself safe from all fraudsters.

The scam almost got you because of the rush and like you said you always exercise patient. This is a lesson that patient is a virtue. Scammers will find it difficult to scam someone who is patient with them. If you follow a P2P trade scammer with their rush you will fall fast. But to be cool will help you see those minor signs that you won't identify if in a haste.

I realized that when you are in need of money is not suppose to be when you process for it using an exchange. If you can get someone to borrow from and within your relaxed time you can process your funds and pay back.

Scammers would always come up with ways to trick a trader who is unsuspecting and blindly trusts the system. I have been trading for sometime to know that before I confirm any transactions, I must first check my bank balance to be certain the amount paid in has reflected, otherwise I don't give a consent to proceed.
I also try to reduce the time limit of transaction from 30' to 15' and within this time frame, a trader must complete the sell/buy  order, otherwise, it gets cancelled automatically and then I choose another vendor.

Also, I think using an authentication password system would help to let your brain repeat and understand what you just saw before typing in the codes to confirm the release of your funds to a buyer, otherwise it would be another story to just see a buyer paid and click then you confirm with checking.

I have read so much stories of scammers trying to highjack the P2p system of Bybit and it doesn't tell well how people who want cryptocurrency and decentralized system to become the order of the day, are the ones who themselves don't want progress.

But why you self com dey act so desperate to trade with the buyer abi na due to favourable trading rate? Anyhow shaa since em don tell you say em don try to process the payment and the transaction failed, u for apply some skepticism the moment em ask u to cancel the deal instead of ur persistence.
I don get similar encounter where the buyer timeout elapsed and the buyer no make the payment. So the broker get to cancel the trade order and then gives me room to open new sells order to other vendors.
So I think the stress of you going to even chat the buyer after the timeout dey unnecessary. Next time just move on and place new order.

I know say sometimes we dey get bills to settle. So we need to rush exchange money. These scammers fit take advantage of our rush rush condition collect our money. Na him make we need to calm down, check all the checkables before you click anything. Me I dey even call my paddy wey dey around me to confirm payments for my bank alert before I release the coins. Thank God say him plan no work.     

Is an indeed a scammer, he didn't even no that the seller cannot cancel deal after initiated except the person that's buying that has the right to do it. I see that he was upset because his plans didn't work on you that's why he was sounding that way, from when you ask him of the payment after the timer and he said it was a failed transfer without being the one to inform you first actually mean a bad intention, because if it was someone that doesn't have other hidden goal he would have notified you earlier immediately after the payment failed and not tap  paid so that you guys would have known how to do it.

I had similar experience in one of my trades. Then my account wasn't upgraded so the buyers transaction failed due to my accounts inability to receive such the amount I wanted to sell. The buyer went ahead to click paid I contacted the buyer and she was hesitant to reply my chat. I had to check my transaction history and saw the failed transactions and asked her to cancel the trade. If I wasn't smart enough I would have lost that coin.

The rate at which p2p scammer are on a rampage is very alarming this days, I can still remember clearly when I started trading on p2p in the year 2020 through my binance app, when they were still in the Nigerian market, I never ever encountered any fraudulent activities while utilizing their services, it was when they left the Nigerian market a few years back and I started using bybit that I started seeing things like this going out of hand.

That's why I am blaming most of this exchange for the increase in fraudulent activities going on because binance have zero tolerance for that, once you are reported more than once, they will likely take action and remove such vendor from their platform, unlike bybit or bitget that don't care about the feedback of their customers.

I swear, the way in which scamming activities is going higher by the day if one is not careful some thing bad might happened. Bybit recently is becoming something else because their rate of scam cases is becoming to high than every other exchange platform and they're yet doing anything about it.

Haven't said that, similar case like this happened to one of my guy, but his was short payment scam, he was supposed to receive a total sum of about #345679 or way about but what the guy sent was 200k plus and him at his own end didn't even confirm the payment if it was actually complete when he released his coins to the vendor, it was after everything he realized he was short pay and their was nothing he could do about it. Sometimes we at our end carelessly gives room to this cheap scam to take hold, if we are much careful and pay every single attention needed I don't think this so call scammers can be hitting us this hard.

Me I no even think say na because of the rush wey cause the issue,the tin be say op just jam scammer for the trade. If to say na correct trader wey scam no dey in mind the trade for just go smoothly. My concern be say why all this complaints dey always come from Bybit exchang P2P? Most of the complaints we dey get about P2P scammers for this board dey always come from Bybit. Maybe na high rate dem dey find, but to me successfully trade dey more important than high rate. Plenty platforms dey wey people fit dey go see their usdt wey their scam level almost dey zero level.

I’ve also taken it upon myself never to spare these scammers whenever I come across them. If I ever noticed the slightest bit of a move that depicts a scam attempt, I’ll not only make that trading experience frustrating for you, but I’ll equally give you the worst review others, so that others would actually see you for who you are, and if I ever see that merchant next time, I’ll kindly ignore and avoid you.

I had an encounter with one of the scammers in bybit. The vendor was trying to play smartness with me , I was not really in a hurry to fall for the vendor trick . It is important not to be careful when making P2P transaction in an exchange to avoid being scam. Most of this vendors will be displaying different amounts in there ads only to come up with unnecessary excuses of how they won't be able to go home or make a profit from the exchange rate they advertised.

What are you saying here? It should be a mistake I guess. It is most imperative to be extremely careful when performing p2p trading no need to be in a hurry, leave whatever things you are going or finishing up with whatever you doing before thinking of a p2p trading, in most of my recent experience with those vendors now is that they are now dropping an invalid payment receipt where anyone in a hurry will think the transfer has been successful and rush straight up to release coin. Honestly every attempt to perform a p2p trading should be seen and approach like is the first time.

My brother no be small matter oo, so many times wen I don rush wan release coin for trade so many times but something dey always push me to check at the very last minutes and e dey always dey worth am because most of the time the vendor Dem dey even fluctuate the price for their ads from the original and if you come go make mistake release coin for that kind trade na be say your coin don go be that oo

Still a bit foggy to me , I can't  really process the whole drama that happened but OP, do you have a screenshot of how the prompt or Notification  looked like  so that other won't fall for such attempt possibilly in the futre because i think this seem new .
I never had to deal with order cancellation so I don't  know how it really works  a quote or maybe a screenshot  could go a long way , just saying .

Thanks OP for sharing your experience with us, nobody knows everything finish and for us wey never encounter such experience na opportunity for us to guide against am Incase marchants wan scam us for CEX p2p. My own experiences wey I don encounter be say di vendors go say make I release coins, if money never enter my account I go just ignore until I see money before I go release coins.

On one occasion wey I never see 'release coins' I ignore as usual, di guy called me say how far say im don pay but I tell am say I never see release coins before I go check my account. Im advice me to update my CEX app for play store, as I do am I come see release coins for di app, I check my account money don enter and I release am.

This issue of those scammers has been popular these days. Before, only a few people were complaining about those vendors, but now it seems that the thing has become obvious since they are trying to scam everyone that wants to trade with them, and that’s why it’s good for us to be very careful when we come to P2P so that we won’t fall victim to them.

Yeah, some traders will tell you that they have made the payment and then ask you to release the coin, and sometimes if you want your banks to confirm the transactions, the money will not reflect until you chat with them before the money can reflect, so in this case if you were to say you’ve released the coin to them, that’s all your assets will just gone for nothing.