Bare with me- I need help figuring out if I'm going to be scammed or not.

[thepaybackcorporation]

Okay, I'll cut right into it; I am completely new to Bitcoin. Like "never-held-girl's-hand-before/hymen-still-intact" virgin levels of noob. (I'm not a virgin, but in the Internet, who cares) Anyways, as you can see, I just made this account. I stumbled upon these forums, mainly this section because of the topic at hand, and figured I'd ask dumb very nooby questions to try and wrap my head around this whole Bitcoin thing. After a quick glance at my wallet and other's wallets, I realize I have no f'n idea how to read any Bitcoin-related thing and the language or vocabulary used while discussing Bitcoin just sounds complicated and confusing.

Well, why am I dealing with Bitcoin then? Well, I'm paying for a... 'special service' from a user. I contacted this user to provide me with this service and has given me a seemingly fair deal. Of course we want to keep our transaction off the radar, so he said we can do so by either WesterUnion or Bitcoin. He gave me some of his personal info to enable me to be able to pay him via WesternUnion, and he also gave me his Bitcoin wallet address- to which upon looking up, I cannot even read or understand it for the life of me, I can't tell whether the account is trustworthy or sketchy. I can do either one, I'm sure. He even gave me his phone number so that we can text in real time.

He does communicate comprehensibly, and he does answer questions as if he knows about his particular profession like as if he'd done it many times before, but of course, with anonymity on the Internet, I'm beginning to question credibility. He lives in another country as well, so not sure how relevant that may be.

Anyways, if anyone can help determine whether or not this person is trustworthy, that would be very helpful. I can provide screenshots of our email conversations (once censored, of course) and perhaps his Bitcoin wallet- unless that's a dick move to do to someone. I wanna' trust this guy, and he seems like he does want to start a business relation with me, so perhaps I'm getting too wrapped up. But better safe than sorry. I did read the sticky thread, but I'm still pretty iffy.

Feel free to PM me and I can consider giving some more details into my situation so that I could get some better advice or outside commentary. 

[james.lent]

Why dont you use an escrow ?

Check out : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0

So, you dont have to worry about being scammed.

[thepaybackcorporation]

Thanks, that gives me a whole lot of confidence now. Will they handle most of the transaction? And will the person I am making a transaction with have to know about the escrow? The person I am making a deal with wants me to pay up first before they provide any service to me, so I'm not sure whether or not an escrow will make the person feel very un-trusted and therefore back out. Or maybe if they've done this sort of thing plenty of times before that they would understand the other person feeling uneasy and therefore seeking out an escrow.

[james.lent]

Thanks, that gives me a whole lot of confidence now. Will they handle most of the transaction? And will the person I am making a transaction with have to know about the escrow? The person I am making a deal with wants me to pay up first before they provide any service to me, so I'm not sure whether or not an escrow will make the person feel very un-trusted and therefore back out. Or maybe if they've done this sort of thing plenty of times before that they would understand the other person feeling uneasy and therefore seeking out an escrow.

If its a trusted member and a small amount, then well its fine i guess but at the end of the day its always a gamble so yeah, i reckon you inform him that you want an escrow involved in the deal.

[zerocharisma]

Will they handle most of the transaction?

'Escrow Service'
Holds payments made for a service and releases them to the intended recipient only after it has been verified that the recipient has kept his end of the deal.

And will the person I am making a transaction with have to know about the escrow?

He/she should know, Because escrow will contact you both. And it's the Escrow where he/she receive the payment of your deal.

The person I am making a deal with wants me to pay up first before they provide any service to me, so I'm not sure whether or not an escrow will make the person feel very un-trusted and therefore back out. 

If the person is already used with this services and making a deal then the person maybe already know on how using a escrow works. It's just a security precaution.
AFAIK, only a scammer will feel "un-trusted and back out" when using a Escrow.

[Fortify]

Escrow's are not some magic bullet, just normal people who have been on the forums for a long time, a few have gotten greedy and vanished after receiving some big amounts. The only reason they have to complete the deal is to earn a commission, but you are still effectively trusting a stranger to be a middle man to your transaction so don't send too much money in one go.

It's like anything, you probably will get burned a few times by scammers because they can be extremely manipulative and devious. After a few trades you'll pick up on warning signs and may even just get a bad feeling about trading with someone - skip the deal. Just remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

A few tips:
Accounts can be bought and sold, check through a few pages of the persons posts to see if the writing style has changed - trust accrued by the original owner might have been bought by a scammer.

Always review trusted (and untrusted) feedback against a person's profile

A lot of the time newbie and jr accounts posing as sellers will be here to rip you off, they keep creating new accounts when their scam is outed.

Trust no one here, unless you know them in real life.

[Phildo]

He has to know if you are going to use an escrow because he won't get paid until the service gets done.

You pay the escrow, he proves to the escrow he did what he was supposed to, the escrow pays him.

I am going to guess that you are going to get scammed if the guy offered to accept payment via one of these irretrievable methods.

[philipma1957]

yeah and I am also going to guess the 'service' is not exactly legal so quite a few legit escrow guys won't want to do escrow for you.

I do escrow here and there but for sales of gear and within the same country.



So here is my suggestion do not do the deal as it  sounds far too shady.

[Slow death]

I found a very strange story

You want to make a deal that does not tell us what kind of business you intend to do. but the person that you want to do such business lives in another country

and the person who lives in another country gave you phone number and talk much with you, but do not speak of his profession

I've seen and heard many scams involving wester union and reading your story I impression you want to hit someone using bitcoin, but do not know exactly how bitcoin works

[European Central Bank]

You can google the bitcoin address and see if it turns up anywhere else. By the sound of it no escrow here's gonna want to touch something shady and the guy you're dealing with probably ain't gonna know who the hell they are anyway.