This information is for newbies because I know that most old members in this forum has already figured out the exchange that they prefer to use. Paxful exchange is a Nigeria exchange and scammers have started using this exchange to look for victims that will fall into their scam to rob them off their bitcoin. There are fake p2p traders there which their intention is to scam anyone that wants to sell their bitcoin because for dispute to be resolved takes three weeks in paxful and this makes it gives the scammer a long period of time as an advantage for him to use all his scamming tactics on you and also deprive you access to your funds.
This is how the whole thing will go like, the scammer will claim that he wants to buy your coins when you want to sell and in the next few minutes, he will click that he has sent you payment for you to release the coins. If you then go to your bank and confirm the payment and to your surprise you will see that there is no money sent to your account. This is where the scamming process starts from, he will start urging you yo release the coins and if you don't, he will not cancel the trade, so that he came come up with his scam.
Since he hasn't cancel the trade and after some hours, when you haven't still receive your funds, you will become worried. If you call him, he would say that he has sent it and the best option is for you to report to moderator and create a dispute of your transaction to make sure that the exchange is aware of what is going on. After you have created a dispute, moderator will tell you that it will take three weeks for them to cancel the trade after it has been confirmed that the merchant can't come out to show prove of payment. After some hours, the scammer will send you a chat as if he is the moderator of paxful that is handling the issue, that you should be sorry for any inconveniences, that they have found out the the p2p trader is a scam and they have block his account that you should send them your bitcoin wallet address so that paxful can refund back your bitcoin to your address and after that you should click on send.
The moment you fall for this and do as said, then you click on send, you have release your coins unknowingly to you, and the scammer will be in custody of your bitcoin. This is why it is good that we use a big and popular exchange in the world like Binance, Kucoin and Coinbase to avoid been vulnerable to scammers, or better still use a decentralized exchange like bisq. Also note that using a centralized or decentralized exchange doesn't still free you from being scammed. So beware of scammers and make sure that you select p2p merchant with high reputation even though their exchange price is low compare to some other traders.
This is a chat from paxful moderator chatting with my friend that didn't fall for the scammer. If you look at the color, it is purple and below the chat, you will see the paxful exchange logo and written moderator.
This second chat is from the p2p scammer guy claiming to be the moderator. If you look at the downside beneath the chat, you will see P and not paxful logo and moderator. Instead the moderator was inside the chat box. When my friend was chatting with the scammer, it was that same P that shows beneath the chat just as it shows now. This was how my friend confirmed that the p2p trader is a scammer, because at first he thought the it was bank network problem that made him not to have seen the money in his account.
The worst of it was that my friend became worried of his bitcoin in paxful custody because he needed cash, he called this scammer again and the scammer told him to send him 5k, so that he will cancel the trade and as I am writing this thread, the scammer hasn't still cancelled the trade and there is nothing that my friend can do about it than to wait till the three weeks complete for paxful to cancel the trade. What a mess and a waste of time. Beware of paxful and stay away from this exchange to avoid all these stress or losing your coins, because it is an exchange for bunch of scammers.
