Following the recent activities by some sellers on the site and the over trusting nature of some buyers, we would like to share some tips and hits which would help you tackle the crypto anonymity nature and reduce the chances of losses and scam attempts.
Below is a list of things to note, they are the Bible of Buying on a crypto marketplace and the guide to safe and secure anonymous shopping. Please read them and try to abide by them as much as possible where applicable:
If it's too good to be true, it probably is:Do not take things for granted. A seller selling you a $2,000 item for $800 is NOT a good deal! You're most likely going to receive a message asking you to release escrow before they can ship, or that they're broke and can't afford shipping so please send them some funds first and release the escrow once you receive the item. NO, don't listen, they will take the "some funds" you sent and disappear. If you do think it's a good deal, GREAT! Use escrow and DO NOT release those funds before you receive and inspect the item.
DO NOT make deals on the site and finalize them elsewhere:If you found a seller on the site with a great deal but is asking you to take a third party route and finalize the purchase outside our system be VERY careful. They will try and get you to send funds directly to their address and without going through escrow or the site at all, this smells doesn't it? Dealing outside the site on NOT our responsibility! We can't even prove that you've made the deal with them, you might be just trying to raise suspicions towards their account as they're a competitor of yours. Hence, no action will be taking against seller accounts if the deal was made outside cryptothrift's system and things went wrong.
DO NOT buy valuable items without escrow:Even sellers with GREAT reputation might think it's worth risking their accounts getting suspended and losing their reputation on the site for few thousand dollars. Valuable/expensive items are not items over $1,000, if you only have $100 worth of Bitcoins, even a $20 loss is a lot. Why would you even risk it?
DO NOT release escrow before you receive your item:C'mon guys, you bought an item, ticked the escrow box AND paid for an escrow service, why in the world would you release funds before receiving and inspecting your item? It's common sense, DO NOT trust those sellers, if you receive a message from the seller to release funds before they can ship your item, we expect your next step to be a refund request to our
Support team and a report against the seller's account so the correct measures can be taken by our team against the account.
Buying a digital item?Digital items are great, they're often cheaper that RRP and quicker to be delivered of course. But, how do you know they're legit? or they haven't been bought with a stolen credit card or the seller won't be closing them at a later stage? When buying digital items there are few things you should do/consider...
Image Credit:
Farces of Nature DO NOT release escrow before you redeem gift cards and spend the amount on them. We give buyers up to 30 days to release escrow, just take your time, ignore those annoying messages from the seller and when it's get VERY annoying contact our
Support, we will deal with them.
DO NOT fall for 30% extra credit on your purchase. No one wake up and decides to give you $1,500 and get $1,200 worth in Bitcoin. This takes us back to "If it's too good to be true, it probably is!". Only buy high valued digital items from trusted sellers with long term reputation. There are a lot of them around. It's your money, do your research before throwing it around.
If you're buying gift-cards from a new seller with little or no reputation, get yourself a new account on the site where you'll be redeeming those cards. You don't want your 3 years old account to get suspended because a seller have used a stolen credit card to purchase the codes.
What is cryptothrift doing to stop scam activities and build a more trusted crypto marketplace?We are working hard on filtering suspicious listings, suspending suspicious accounts, blocking their emails and IP from registering and accessing the site. But that's not enough, we all know how easy is it to get a new IP and email, so what's next?
We are working on multi-verification system which should be live soon. Sellers will be able to get verified using their social network reputation as well as their proof of ID and address. This is already in the work and we've found the right resources to verify social network accounts. Seller with fully "Gold" (social networks and identity verification) accounts will be able to sell without offering escrow. Sellers with Partially Verified "Silver" (Social networks or Identity verification) will be able to sell items and ALWAYS offer escrow, but buyers will have the choice to select whether or not they would like to use escrow. Sellers who are not verified will always have to offer escrow and buyers will ALWAYS have to use escrow when buying from those sellers. Unverified sellers will have no choice but to wait the full 30 days before their funds can be released from escrow.
What can I do to help cryptothrift tackle these listings, accounts and activities?You can do a LOT, you are not only users (buyers/sellers) you are our site and without you we are nothing. We do need your help filter listings and better secure the site. If you believe that a listing is a spam, fake or a scam please let us know. You can report a listing or a seller by clicking on the
Support button (on the right of every page) and select "Report Listing" or "Report User", type your explanations and submit it to us. We will closely check the listing and manually monitor the seller account.
But, what would you get in return? If you report a user or a listing and your suspicions are right, you will go in our weekly draw. Yes! we will be having weekly 0.1 BTC draw of all users who have successfully identified a spam, a scam or a suspicious user where action was taken against the reported matter.
So you say we're doing it wrong?AWESOME! That's how we can improve. Please let us know if you have better suggestions, a more easy/complex way of tackling this wild west and we would be happy to listen. In fact, if your suggestions are so good that we end up implementing them, a bounty will be given. Again, the
Support button it your next step, contact us and select "Feature Suggestion" from the drop down menu, we are all ears.
Image Credit:
Farces of Nature
