I greet everyone!
Bad actors in cryptoland are a constant threat, you must maintain vigilance in all you do.
I want to share something with the community that happened in a peer-to-peer transaction when I attempted to convert my BUSD to fiat.
First, I'd like to quote one of the top members here, Charles-Tim, from one of his posts.
Kyc is extremely dangerous , but not to the bad actors as they are the criminals making use of fake information for kyc purpose and they are using it for fraudulent activities.
KYC is actually good, it reduce the rate of criminality and fraudulent activities but that doesn't mean you and I are completely safe and the same time, KYC is bad and not good for exchanges, the person you trust today may turn out to be the must dangerous scammer you will ever meet.
A scammer can get your attention, win all your trust and everything just to get back at you and by the time they attack you, it will be once and when they do, they make sure they completely drain you of all your pocket. This is what some scammers has been doing in p2p communities especially Binance exchange.
I have been using Binance p2p quite for some time now and I am very familiar with their ways of informing everyone on how to trade safely, the pros and cons and how to detect and report scammers, despite the KYC and other information required by Binance, some guys always know their way out of tight security.
This month on the 2nd of October, I wanted exchanging few amount of BUSD on Binance p2p and the requirements on the exchange before accessing p2p was that you need to be KYC verified, Email and SMS verified before you can become a Marchant on the exchange, this is the only way to trade NGN fiat since fiat deposit and withdrawal has been hanging for months now due to government interference.
The first thing I needed to do was to select a Marchant that I wish to trade with and after searching, I was satisfied with this guy since his 30 days trade is almost a thousand plus (1573), that's quite a busy merchant(buyer/seller)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ibb.co%2Fq0tjMj5%2FScreenshot-20211026-074119-1.jpg&t=665&c=VzyxoQV3nHkVsQ)
So, after checking his statistics, I was convinced with his terms and conditions, satisfied with the dollar rate and then I proceeded to exchange 55 BUSD at dollar rate of 535, I filled my account number and name and was waiting patiently for the buyer to send me the money as agreed on the rate.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ibb.co%2FJmFjLLL%2FScreenshot-20211026-074132-1.jpg&t=665&c=yFkc5BZq-NSktw)
Just 2 minutes of setting the trade, I received an sms that the user has sent me payment which of course is the norm thing traders do immediately they come online when they are notified about a trade, some do click sent so that the timer wouldn't beat them (Binance always set a time for each trade, if it's doesn't get done in 15 minutes, it automatically get cancelled) but this is where some bad actors make bad moves.
Immediately, I checked my Mobile App to confirm the payment he claimed he sent since I never received any sms alert, lo and behold, my account was broke, no alert seen or any fresh transaction. I chatted him immediately that I am yet to receive any cash.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ibb.co%2FNYjb6Ph%2FScreenshot-20211026-074159-1.jpg&t=665&c=_w647-_uAhmLFA)
His response was quite fast and he told me that he already sent the payment, that I should check again that he already made my payment since. This time, I was worried that it may be due to network issues, some inter bank transactions can waste your time.
I double-checked my Mobile App for payment confirmation, but nothing had arrived. I rushed to Binance to inform him that he needed to wait for me to receive alerts before releasing the busd to him, but I was taken aback by the fact that the guy had cancelled our trade for which he claimed to have sent me money.
I was in awe at that time, so I told him I'd report him to Binance, but he never responded, never provided me an explanation for why he terminated our trade, which he said he sent me money.
So many thoughts were going through my mind, why will a buyer cancel a trade that he claimed that he sent me money?
- Could it be that the buyer never sent the money and wanted to play smart?
- Why would a verified person would want to scam?
- How many traders would have actually been of this kind trap if they sent the Busd without making confirmation.
I had many thoughts on mind but one that actually answer the question is that, KYC is never enough and can't stop any fraudulent act if they want to play smart, scammers are out there and they are developing new ways to get Maga (the innocents) that comes their way.