Whether or not one needs to show ID depends on which country you live in and how the laws of that country regulate BTC ATMs. I have mentioned this before - In my country you cant buy from a bitcoin ATM unless you have ID and are over 18.

Thanks for all the support and recommendations. Even the negative ones... I kind of deserve it. I am starting to get over the loss and move forward. Still balls deep into everything crypto though

Could you point to a few legit exchanges that dont require verification? Thanks.

Yeah... Looking back I realize that now. I got excited about the tanking prices...

I am a teenager and as I mentioned my situation with parents/guardian are not standard.

Yeah... The police will definitely get a adult involved. I dont want to go into detail here on why I dont want to involve my parents/guardians and why I would be in trouble. The net damage of going to the police might be higher than the gain.

How long did it take to get over the loss and get back on the horse?

3800.- Euros (Been saving it up for a while) I am sure the police would investigate and maybe even catch the guys but I am probably not the only one they have scammed and owe money to. If I had to guess they looked like they live a "fast" lifestyle and burn money quick. Usually in the end the police or the courts have nothing to confiscate.

We communicated through facebook messenger. I blasted them on messenger till yesterday until a point when it looked like the account does not exist any more. I am contemplating about going to the police but that would also mean that I am in big trouble. Although the hotel had cameras I am pretty sure the probability of getting my money back is close to 0.

I thought about that but since they probably never made the payment I have nothing to look up. I have pretty much nothing. No wallet ID, no transaction ID.

I got scammed.

But first, let me start from the beginning. Since most of the people recommended getting a parent/guardian or a person who is over 18 involved I manned up and approached the only adult I knew who might be ok with helping me out. My pitch went well and he was cool with the idea. We began the process of setting up a account on his name on Coinbase. I had no idea it was such a painstaking process, hence I had told him that it will be quick. I felt bad... I looked like I had not thought this process through and I was misleading. It took us about 2 hours to get to a point where Coinbase asked him to make a 8 second video of himself holding up his credit card to his face and read a script. I could tell he was not comfortable with it and I was not comfortable with it also. We tried Kraken also, but it soon became evident that we would end up in the same spot. Anyway... I looked like I did not know what I was doing so I had to apologize and abort the whole plan. I was frustrated. Bollocks.

Then became friday (22.12). When I got up I saw that bitcoins and all the altcoins were tanking. I got excited. This was my chance! A great time to buy and to get on board. Against all of the recommendations and my own better judgement I decided to find a local dealer and opt for a face-to-face deal. I found one on facebook and we set up a meeting in a hotel lobby. It was a 2 hour adventure for me to get to the hotel. There was two guys waiting for me. I introduced myself, we shook hands and started with the business. One guy scanned my QR code with his Ipad and told me to hand over the cash. I did. It looked like he had sent the bitcoins my way. They said that due to heavy traffic the transaction time was 30min to 1h (I had also read about long transaction times and it sounded logical). I made the mistake of not demanding that we wait together for the transfer to hit my wallet before I handed over my money. I asked if they could wait with me but they refused. My pleading did not work. They left.

Since the whole deal was pretty intense for me I sat there looking into infinity for the next 5 minutes. I started my journey back home refreshing my wallet every 30 seconds. By the time I was home it was clear there was no payment coming. I was and still am mortified.

Looking back they looked tense. It looked like one guy was telling the other guy what to do. It did not feel right, but I felt like I was already in too deep to abort... Maybe they would get pissed if I told them that I changed my mind. Also everything happened pretty quickly.

Thanks for all the suggestions. There are some expensive options with a few places with high fees but I guess I have no choice. I will give an update on how things went down.

Im going all in.         Ok just kidding.

Thanks will look into the options. Did you mean virwox.com or viewox?

Thanks for the reply`s all! Asking my guardian is out of the question. To do a face-to-face buy/sell I would have to travel quite a bit. I did try to buy from a facebook group but had to abort. Looking back I am 90% shore I almost got scammed. Decent sellers with high reputation want to see ID even through facebook. There is a bitcoin ATM in a nearby city but it is located in a pawnshop and one would need ID before using it. Any other ideas?

Thanks for the reply but asking my parents is out of the question.

Hi, Does anyone here have any experience of overcoming this issue. The amount I want to park in bitcoin and maybe other altcoins is not big but also not small.

Help a kid out!

Yeah. My parents are also out of the question. Also the other ideas proposed here do not work in my case. The amount I want to park in bitcoins and maybe other altcoins is not big but also not small.

I am underage and have extreme difficulty buying bitcoin. There is a bitcoin ATM in the city where I live but it is in a pawnshop and they need to check the persons ID before using the ATM and one has to be at least 18. Bollocks.