New Miner Needing Help with Miner Purchase

[StormStrikes]

Hello all.

I have been trying to read and learn about bitcoin and have even played around a little with mining on my PC with a pretty inadequate GPU.  Though the purpose was to figure out the joining of pools, getting a wallet, all the beginner stuff.  I have decided I want to jump in on a bigger scale and start by purchasing an S9 miner (actually two of them).  I have found a pair for a really good price, but it is from an overseas vendor (not Bitmain).  I have communicated with the seller and have set the price, etc.  It will be two S9's with PSU's.  However, past that, I know nothing of the seller and would like to purchase the miners, but want some security in the purchase.

Since the seller takes Bitcoin I thought I would just buy enough to make the purchase then put them in an escrow account.  I have never dealt with a bitcoin escrow account and was hoping to get some input on a good one to use, what other things I should consider, or if what I am considering for the purchase process is not a good way to go.  In the interest of full disclosure, I found the seller on Alibaba.  I came across it searching for S9's and my thought was since they come from overseas anyway, why not cut out the middleman and save a good chunk of cash in the process.  The downside to that is I don't automatically have some of the purchase protection that you might have from buying from Amazon, eBay, etc.  I cannot touch the price this seller is offering via any domestic vendor I have come across, so the incentive is there, but I just want to make sure once I fork out the money, I get the miners.

Any help, insight and wisdom is greatly appreciated.

[crairezx20]

Honestly i never trust to buy to anyone except for bitmain if you buy direct from them..
If you deal to alibaba i can't guaranteed you that you are safe to deal to someone there because i heard that many scammers out there..
If you are using escrow you should know first the background of the escrow and the only that i know good to be escrow is escrow here in forum.. outside of this forum i don't know who is trusted. but here i think you can ask for help with philipma1957
he is one the trusted here in forum that can give you some advise about dealing to someone or use him as escrow..

[StormStrikes]

crairezx20, thank you SO much for that insight.  I have been very guarded about purchasing from Alibaba for the very reasons you mentioned but I thought if I could verify or secure my purchase it would be worth it.  I guess you can't really go wrong with Bitmain since they seem to have a good reputation.  I had hoped to save some money and get ROI faster, but as the saying goes, if it is too good to be true...