Bitcoin Forum

Pretty new to the forum and a little paranoid/suspicious about how the marketplace section works. (I eventually will be trying to sell an unused 650w PSU)

What's the best way to ensure a transaction occurs honestly? Using an escrow service? Or just being very selective with who you're working with (ie checking references, etc)

when selling take the payments using bitcoins. take the money first then send the psu. once you have the money you cannot be scammed.

What you say is true. It just means the other person needs to trust me, which I don't necessarily see happening as I have no references, etc to prove that trust.

Escrow, bitcoin or liberty reserve are obviously the best way to not get scammed

And as far as escrow goes, using something like:

bitcoin-escrow.i2p.to/
btcrow.com/

or having a trusted forum member hold escrow?

If you are selling, generally the buyer is the one taking the risk when paying before shipment.

If the buyer sends bitcoins to you then there's really no risk to you (though some nutjob might try to claim you shipped an empty box and shame you to cough up some money, etc.)

The #bitcoin-escrow IRC channel along with ratings from the #bitcoin-otc Web of Trust (WoT) is probably the best place currently to find a trusted escrow that you can hire:
 - http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-escrow
 - http://wiki.bitcoin-otc.com/wiki/OTC_Rating_System

There is good information here:
 - http://wiki.bitcoin-otc.com/wiki/Using_bitcoin-otc#Safety:_avoiding_fraud

Very simple:

DON'T DEAL WITH SHAKARU.

The forum user for that doesn't show as being logged in since February.  There hasn't been anyone reporting having lost money when using them but the site did go offline for weeks and then came back, with no communication regarding the outage.  The domain is registered with privacy enabled, and there's no contact info shown on the site other than e-mail.  Generally, with bitcoin ventures the track record when these combinations exist has not been good:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21544.0

Thanks for all the advice!

only trust members who have high ranking

Always take the money first that way you don't lose the product and the money if you get scammed.

I agree that it is better to be rich and healthy than to be poor and sick. Most of the people will not argue against it

Also, when shipping always use some sort of tracking or delivery confirmation.

Forum ranking is based only on posts, which is a poor measure of trustworthiness.

trust only long time members, with many vouchers, also the vouches should be from other long time members.

lol

I have would have to second trusting well known members...

Amen to that :)