Overview:One thing I've noticed during my time on these forums is that a good percentage of p2p scam accusations originate from the Marketplace sub-forums. Since there don't seem to be any solid guidelines on how to mitigate this risk apart from a note regarding escrow, I thought I'd create my own thread on the matter. The purpose of this thread is to outline what I believe to be best practice when trading in this section and how to avoid being scammed. Most of this is simply common sense, but perhaps it will be helpful to some.
Guidelines1. Don't be afraid to ask for escrow, even if the buyer/seller has a trusted reputation. Any reputable trader will agree to this request, it should raise red flags if they are hesitant. Remember that there is no rush when trading, it is better to take a few extra hours or pay 1% more for the item you are buying if it means lowering your risk of being scammed. A good list of active forum escrows can be found
here.
2. When conducting transactions via escrow, ensure that you are corresponding with the escrow themselves. Scammers will often pretend to be your escrow of choice by sending you a fake Skype or Email account. Only contact Bitcointalk forum escrows through details they have directly shared with you. If possible, request a PGP signed message, as most will provide one.
3. Check user feedback thoroughly. Not all scammers will appear with negative feedback at Default Trust level. Remember to look at untrusted feedback and see if there any negative ratings with substantial evidence. Untrusted feedback is often just as useful when determining who is untrustworthy.
Important note: User trust is not visible to guests. To guests who are reading this, I highly suggest you create a forum account before trading with anyone so you can see their feedback, especially if they are selling via auto-sell.4. Be cautious when dealing with new accounts. Chances are there is a reason they created a fresh account, and those reasons usually aren't good.
5. Account rank and trust ratings do not necessarily indicate someone is more trustworthy. Forum accounts are frequently sold or hacked and used to scam users under the guise of previous good feedback or high activity level. Make sure to check your trading partner's most recent feedback as well as search their username in the
security log. A recent password or email change might indicate that you are not dealing with the original account owner.
6. Be wary of self-moderated threads. These are generally only used to curate feedback and delete negative posts. The same is true of locked threads, if there is no obvious reason the thread is locked, assume it is to avoid negative reviews.
7. I strongly recommend against purchasing items through automated selling websites such as selly.gg or rocketr.net. Auto-sell links are no safer than p2p transactions, these websites make no guarantee you will receive the item you are purchasing. While these options appear more convenient and slightly safer than traditional trading, they are actually more risky.
Extreme caution should be used when dealing with users who sell via auto-sell links in conjunction with a locked self-moderated thread, these are almost exclusively scams.8. If a deal is too good to be true, it probably is.
This thread is a work in progress, feel free to comment with any guidelines you think might be helpful. Will try to bump this thread when I can so it remains visible.
