Paxful or LocalBitcoins? Which one is better and why?

[Kyraishi]

I have discovered paxful recently and was surprised to see some buyers are willing to buy btc at much higher price than market.
I have seen buy order upto $17,000 per btc while market price was still $11k.
I wonder why would someone buy at such a high price when he could have bought it at market rate

I have also observed this. There find up to 100% above market price.

I do not know if it is attempted fraud or if it is really legitimate when it comes to the fact that many third world countries do not have access to bacaria and are experiencing severe crises.

It's fraud. 100 percent. Unless they are only for small amounts and just need to get some quick funds.

The way those work is that they usually get access to hacked or frauded bank accounts or credit cards and then purchase large amounts of crypto-currencies before they get banned and the amount becomes illegal.

Anyway. I'd pick localbitcoins any day of the week if your able to verify your ID. I usually find doing trades their easier and the spreads mean easier profits.

[robbiearchibald10]

www.paxful.com and www.localbitcoins.com both allow for an escrow system for exchanging bitcoins for cash with peer to peer

What are your experiences with each?

Which do you prefer?

Thanks

Honestly, I don't use either. Personally, my go-to P2P platform is Vertex. They have around 1000 different cryptocurrencies on offer so I can always find what I am looking for and the fact that they don't require KYC makes it very easy.

[SaShiRaJaVu]

It's fraud. 100 percent. Unless they are only for small amounts and just need to get some quick funds.
The way those work is that they usually get access to hacked or frauded bank accounts or credit cards and then purchase large amounts of crypto-currencies before they get banned and the amount becomes illegal.
Anyway. I'd pick localbitcoins any day of the week if your able to verify your ID. I usually find doing trades their easier and the spreads mean easier profits.

You cannot call everything a scam, you have the option to purchase the coins at a very high valuation, there are countries that ban the entire flow of bitcoin and if they want to purchase bitcoin they will purchase from these exchanges and mostly they run for exchanging your gift cards and that too at a premium and if you have spare gift cards you can convert to bitcoin.

[Findingnemo]

It's fraud. 100 percent. Unless they are only for small amounts and just need to get some quick funds.
The way those work is that they usually get access to hacked or frauded bank accounts or credit cards and then purchase large amounts of crypto-currencies before they get banned and the amount becomes illegal.
Anyway. I'd pick localbitcoins any day of the week if your able to verify your ID. I usually find doing trades their easier and the spreads mean easier profits.

You cannot call everything a scam, you have the option to purchase the coins at a very high valuation, there are countries that ban the entire flow of bitcoin and if they want to purchase bitcoin they will purchase from these exchanges and mostly they run for exchanging your gift cards and that too at a premium and if you have spare gift cards you can convert to bitcoin.

I guess that user talking about scamming from a trader who uses hacked bank accounts to buy bitcoin then they will hide away but you will be get caught since you only received money from that bank account.You will lose your money and also have to face legal issues.

But this will not happen if you buy from a verified account and also verify the name from received bank account is the same or not. Never accept third party bak transactions.

[ampere]

I have used both before equally, and are both good.
Even though fraudulent activities occur on both websites, i prefer paxful, it is more direct easy and fast to trade your tokens.

And if you do everything right on the platform, you will win any false disputes against you.
None the less, dyor and figure out whatever is best for you as an individual

[paddy_exchange]

I am using localbitcoin for very long time and never faced any issues while selling or buying bitcoin,even if there is a chance of scam the escrow will save your money but you need to take care while you becoming a merchant there (posting a trade),you need to be careful while picking up the trades because newbies may come with someone's proof to steal money from you.

or then that seller can use those same documents to supplant you...
there are cases
send and receive a selfie
and they cheated the next by sending this last selfie and receiving a new one.
It is dangerous to send documentation.

[paddy_exchange]

LocalBitcoins any fukin day! Like is there even a comparison? The site is in operations since I started to trade bitcoins and haven't had a single bad experience to date. Like try searching for scam accusations against them and you'd find nothing. The case is not the same with Paxful.

You look very bad
Localbitcoin is full of scammers
And localbitcoin to a high degree is complicit.

A scammer buys a localbitcoin account.
localbitcoin account changes phone, ip, country
and that new account buys bitcoin. many bitcoin
from methods that allow refund

localbitcoin knowing how to operate these scammers. It does not block the account, it does not mark with caution sign, no ...
Look the other way. charges its 1%
And when the scammer steals tens of thousands of euros from localbitcoin users.
ok, closed and go for the next ...

That to a high degree, is to be complicit

It is very lucrative

[paddy_exchange]

I don't like localbitcoins or paxful because they both want you to deposit about 200 USD worth of btc and I don't have that much I have way less than 100 USD btc. I'm trying to currency exchange on here to see if anyone is interested.

before it was different
localbitcoin became greedy
and every time it offers worse service

[paddy_exchange]

I have discovered paxful recently and was surprised to see some buyers are willing to buy btc at much higher price than market.
I have seen buy order upto $17,000 per btc while market price was still $11k.
I wonder why would someone buy at such a high price when he could have bought it at market rate

scam
they buy
receive the bitcoin
remove the bitcoin
and so with dozens of users
Then they ask for a refund in the payment method
and they keep the bitcoin and the money

[AdolfinWolf]

I have discovered paxful recently and was surprised to see some buyers are willing to buy btc at much higher price than market.
I have seen buy order upto $17,000 per btc while market price was still $11k.
I wonder why would someone buy at such a high price when he could have bought it at market rate

scam
they buy
receive the bitcoin
remove the bitcoin
and so with dozens of users
Then they ask for a refund in the payment method
and they keep the bitcoin and the money

For such large markup rates, this could be true, but i'd like to point out that i've done a great number of btc - > paypal deals on Paxful, where the buyer bought from me for ~20-40% markup rates, using a random paypal account that i had no KYC data from.

I've never had someone chargeback on me. Granted: i did ask them for some additional security steps and only did trades below triple digits.

What i'm trying to say is, for paypal/paysafecard/ etc, some people are actually willing to pay what in your eyes are absurd markup rates.

It's actually a very interesting business model if you can establish a trade route (convert the paypal you get from Paxful users back in to BTC). Lots of money to be made if you can solve the equation between markup = risk



Although i think Paxful is also enforcing KYC nowadays, (haven't used them in awhile), so this ship might've sailed already.

[Findingnemo]

I have discovered paxful recently and was surprised to see some buyers are willing to buy btc at much higher price than market.
I have seen buy order upto $17,000 per btc while market price was still $11k.
I wonder why would someone buy at such a high price when he could have bought it at market rate

scam
they buy
receive the bitcoin
remove the bitcoin
and so with dozens of users
Then they ask for a refund in the payment method
and they keep the bitcoin and the money

If you release bitcoin before you received money into your bank account then it's not their fault.

Localbitcoin does offer support even after the trades completed if there are any chargebacks but all they can do is suspend the user's account until the dispute gets resolved.

[bitgolden]

If you release bitcoin before you received money into your bank account then it's not their fault.

Localbitcoin does offer support even after the trades completed if there are any chargebacks but all they can do is suspend the user's account until the dispute gets resolved.

I guess they might also have the ability to reverse the funds in case of a dispute by considering each and every report send by the users. They have the authority to access the user account and ban the account until the dispute is solved. But in case, where user released bitcoins before confirming the payment than in this case, whole and sole mistake is of the user who released bitcoins before time. This would perhaps be an unsolvable dispute.

I remember once I was selling some amount of bitcoin and I received the same payment two times in my bank account but nor the seller asked me to return it back and nor did the localbitcoins. I kept those funds for a long time but got no response and this might be because the mistake was of the seller and even localbitcoins can't help at this situation.

[Findingnemo]

I remember once I was selling some amount of bitcoin and I received the same payment two times in my bank account but nor the seller asked me to return it back and nor did the localbitcoins. I kept those funds for a long time but got no response and this might be because the mistake was of the seller and even localbitcoins can't help at this situation.

This happened to me as well couple of times but I didn't keep the funds,I just returned to the users even before they asked me to do so, since then they always trust me and buy bitcoins from me whenever they want so this kind of reputation matters for someone who trades regularly on localbitcoin.

[coinfinger]

I have discovered paxful recently and was surprised to see some buyers are willing to buy btc at much higher price than market.
I have seen buy order upto $17,000 per btc while market price was still $11k.
I wonder why would someone buy at such a high price when he could have bought it at market rate

scam
they buy
receive the bitcoin
remove the bitcoin
and so with dozens of users
Then they ask for a refund in the payment method
and they keep the bitcoin and the money

I don't find this reliable. Paxful too has an inbuilt escrow service on their platform so how would they allow something like this happening on their platform? This might even ruin their reputation amongst the market competitors which would leave a negative impact.

Exchanges like localbitcoins or paxful take majority care of such things and they would never anything like this occur in their markets. Even on localbitcoins, there are some orders which are usually much higher above the normal price but it depends on the margin of profit set by the advertiser and the price displays accordingly. They have hardly any sale due to such high prices.

[coupable]

In the third page of this topic, i wish am not posting off topic reply by suggesting to use localcrypto.com (old localethereum) as the best alternative. For several reasons, i would think twice before to send my money to both platforms;
- Both platforms require a deep kyc verification when localcrypto require just a simple level of verification using an email address + phone number.
- Paxful has a bad reputation history and should not be fully trusted.
- Localbitcoin has no intention about its reputation as we can see what has just recently happened by freezing thousands of accounts from different countries.

If you have a pro trader account in one of the two platforms or you just have a nice record of successful dealings, you can export your reputation to localcrypto and enjoy peer to peer trading in a safe place (hope doesn't also turn to ban users) .

[smartbitcoininvestor]

They are both pretty good imo for buying and selling bitcoin.

Paxful and LocalBitcoins are both global marketplaces for people to buy and sell bitcoin with any payment method. Paxful offers over 300+ payment methods and has a seamless escrow system for purchases, while LocalBitcoins has a wide variety of payment methods and you must interact with each seller directly on their terms.

Paxful is available for most countries while LocalBitcoins includes every country in the world. Paxful charges a minimal fee to sellers on transactions, while LocalBitcoins is free for users and charges a minimal 1% fee for advertisements.

[Obywatel]

I have used LBC for over 5 years. It was ok. For about a year, a tragedy. Incompetent Admins, more and more idiots and cheats. You get a negative for not knowing what, admin does grace if he removes it. I strongly advise against. I moved to Paxful.

[peonminer]

Recently I received an email from Paxful requesting that I upload a new KYC document for proof of address. Is it a normal experience of anyone that Paxful requests more KYC documents if you have provided them in the past? This is making me weary of using them any more.

[OmegaStarScream]

Recently I received an email from Paxful requesting that I upload a new KYC document for proof of address. Is it a normal experience of anyone that Paxful requests more KYC documents if you have provided them in the past? This is making me weary of using them any more.

Did you verify your address back when you first sent your ID? If you haven't, and your trading volume just exceeded 10,000$ then that's normal. They implemented a new KYC policy on the 19th of March 2019.

If you've already sent all the documents (ID + proof of address) after that date, then they might have detected some suspicious activity in your account.

[peonminer]

Recently I received an email from Paxful requesting that I upload a new KYC document for proof of address. Is it a normal experience of anyone that Paxful requests more KYC documents if you have provided them in the past? This is making me weary of using them any more.

Did you verify your address back when you first sent your ID? If you haven't, and your trading volume just exceeded 10,000$ then that's normal. They implemented a new KYC policy on the 19th of March 2019.

If you've already sent all the documents (ID + proof of address) after that date, then they might have detected some suspicious activity in your account.

Yes, I was fully verified ID and address. My trading volume is under 10k. I'll have to review the new KYC policy and my account creation date. It's also possible that someone was trying to log in using my email. (I have 2FA and a very randomized password so it would be very unlikely of any success) Sad to say that top creditor database breaches have affected me worse than any crypto site breach. I guess that could be looked at as a positive though. Major creditor databases are seemingly less safe than major crypto databases.