Transactions and no merchandise?

[markmark]

Hey there
I am new to the bitcoin network.

I was wondering:
Is there same fail safe or legal steps to prevent people from taking your money but not sending the promises merchandise?
What if someone tells me that for 3 bitcoins I can have his watch or whatever. maybe on small bitcoin platforms similar to ebay/amazon.
After I paid (transaction successfull and confirmed >= 3) he just keeps the money AND the watch and maybe does this again with other people.
Maybe thinking since those addresses and transactions are kinda anonymous he cannot be held responsable anyway.

So what to do in those cases? 3-5 bitcoins is already a large amount of money (50 EUR, 60 $?).
I would not want to send money to people if the transaction was not reversable (which it isnt as far as I understood) and if the seller of the merchandise was able to trick one.
Seems to me that the anonymity makes it possible to steal money pretty easy by promising stuff and not keeping on's end of the deal...

[deepceleron]

In the beginnings of eBay this is pretty much how it was, you would send a money order to someone and hope they sent you stuff, and 99% of the time they did. There was a lot less international evil on the Internet in 1997 though. Nowadays slimeballs are attracted to Bitcoin like Nigerian princes are attracted to naivegrandma448@aol.com.

[rate5]

If it's not a large amount check for feedback from other buyers and do your due diligence before you buy.  For large amounts I recommend using a escrow service.  ClearCoin use to offer this but there are a few new ones that launched since then.

[The_JMiner]

http://www.bitcoinfeedback.com/


Start there I guess and there's really no safety net just trust. Good luck!

[markmark]

thx
if thats what it is so be it

[Alex Beckenham]

For large amounts I recommend using a escrow service.  ClearCoin use to offer this but there are a few new ones that launched since then.

http://btcrow.com has worked well for me.

[BMFX]

Exactly an escrow systems the best bet if you're doing a large volume transfer. That being said, the trusted user list is something that's self created by the community and is a quality system. I am slightly surprised something like heatware isn't used though.