Asking generally, no specific examples to provide. But say this is on Alphabay.
Say there's a vendor on the market who is relatively new, < 300 orders or so. Pretty consistent positive feedback from buyers. When placing an order though (in escrow) it seems to be ignored, despite the vendor having recent login activity. Funds are released back to buyer due to inactivity. No followup sent, no vacation mode, no indication on profile that they're out of the product, and new positive feedback keeps coming in about the same thing you tried to order 2 weeks ago but they ignored.
as I pull out my tinfoil hat I worry that the positive feedback is coming from a bunch of fresh/fake accounts without real transactions, maybe for one of the following reasons:
1) The vendor is actually LE, collecting personal information of a bunch of buyers
2) The vendor is just trying to earn enough positive feedback so they can get FE capabilities and run with real buyers money
In either case, it doesn't seem there's a way to easily report this type of thing, except the forums I guess. Is this type of thing something that buyers should report, in case it's happening to many buyers? If so what's the best way?
also am i worried about nothing - are there mitigations in place to prevent a vendor from building a bunch of fresh accounts for fake transactions?
(just in case ive already burned all my addresses, along with the actual homes at those addresses, and already have my flights booked for Belize)
You are looking into wayyyyy too much. It's like you are trying to find something bad. Maybe then vendor looked at your buyer feedback and doesn't want to sell to you. Maybe you should just message the vendor and ask, or move on to a different vendor