Scam Prevention and Finalizing Early

Scamming has, and always will be, a huge issue for any Dark Net Market user. How do you know you're going to receive the product that's described in a listing? There are many trains of thought on this issue and many people have vocalized the simple solution "Don't Finalize Early! Don't give them money until you get your product!" which is a wonderful piece of advice. When placing an order on a marketplace, there will be an escrow system that holds onto your funds until you authorize the release to the seller.

It's a classic system, one that has been used even since before Silk Road came to life - the trusted middleman holds onto the funds while the deal is taking place to avoid one person from pulling some kind of scam on the buyer/seller. However, there are still risks involved, and many ask themselves "Why do people finalize early?"

When it comes down to it, someone may be so inclined to finalize an order that hasn't made it to them yet (or even worse, before the vendor even confirms the order) because of a foundation of trust. Putting your trust into a seller who has provided quality products and has quality feedback makes the escrow system look pointless. When a buyer is staring at 5/5 reviews, with hundreds of orders, there won't be a single doubt in that buyers mind that anything could possibly happen.

This is where the critical judgment error occurs. Exit scamming has turned into an art - a lucrative and manipulative one, at that. Let's look back to the original Silk Road, and take a look at one vendor in particular - Tony76. Now, the more experienced Dark Net users may have an idea of who this is already, but in case you don't, I'll give a brief summary. Tony76 registered an account on Silk Road on 10/01/2012, nearly 3 years ago. He was most prominently known for his high quality Heroin, allegedly the best on the market at that time, but also sold MDMA and other products. This vendor was doing everything right, and had great prices and a great army of supporters who would never doubt a thing he said. His prices were so good, he was making a huge name for himself, and it was showing. Customer satisfaction proved to be number one, and over time all buyers had no issues whatsoever buying "finalize-early only" listings, because, hey, it's Tony! What could go wrong?

Needless to say, Tony disappeared after a massive sale and took his customers Bitcoin with him, never to return, never to ship another package. This is quite an elaborate exit scam, in the sense that it was the "long-con", make everyone think exactly what you want them to think over the course of a few months and run. This is relevant now more than ever, as there are many FE-only vendors popping up with excellent prices. History tends to, and will, repeat itself. Don't get your money stolen by somebody you only know through the internet - it's silly and when it happens you'll ask yourself how you could have made such an error. Granted, the escrow system does have its flaws. What if the market goes down, or gets seized, what happens to your money? It's gone. That's the inherent risk of Dark Net Markets, and you must always be prepared for the worst. An alternative to this is taking advantage of marketplaces which use multisig escrow, for maximum buyer/seller security, which is implemented on several markets.

Many people will still choose to finalize orders on their own terms, and as long as you know what risk you're taking by trusting an anonymous vendor, than it's your call. Stay safe, everyone.


Comments


[6 Points] pooppooppants:

This was an excellent post! Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. Completely agree with all the above mentioned.


[3 Points] VeronicaMonica:

Excellent post and you make some great points. However, fme, I've never had a problem with finalizing early. I'm not saying to FE whenever you get a chance, it's just that when it comes FE you have to be aware of the situation of the vendor that is offering FE. Look at the listings to see if anything is out of the ordinary (like some big sale) and always check the reviews to see if the service has been consistent. Also, the one rule for FE that I follow is only FE for the amount of money that you are willing to lose.

Escrow is great for the buyers but it sucks for the vendors because they have to wait for the buyer to release the coins and a good number of them don't release the coins as soon as they receive the package and it doens't help the fact that BTC prices fluctuates very frequently so it's understandable that the vendors want to get their money asap. The really bad customers totally forgets to release so the vendors don't get their money until the order auto-finalizes. This is why many vendors now days will stop doing business with customers that forgot to finalize, even if it was just one time. Also, many vendors are also asking customer with little or no positive feedback to finalize early and some vendors aren't even taking on new customers because there are just many shady customers out there that they don't want to deal with.

Exit scamming is actually pretty tricky to pull off. You only get one shot and by this time many people are aware of the phenomenon so pulling an exit scam these days requires an more elaborate planning. Fortunately, I've seen vendors just announce that they will no longer doing business on the DNM. No exit scam, no shady business, just getting out of the game cleanly.

Of course that isn't to say that exit scam won't happen because it most likely will. There are shady vendors out there, but there are shady customers out there as well, but I am happy to say that I've had more positive encounters with vendors than bad encounters and I hope most vendors can say the same thing about the customers.


[4 Points] Vendor_BBMC:

Vendors are keen for you to finalize because they don't trust the marketplace not to steal the money, or be offline, or its wallets not to work

There comes a time when customers trust the vendor more than they trust fucking SR2 or Sheepmarket or Evo or alphabay, and the vendor trusts the customer.

If they were clever, they wouldn't use alphabay at all. markets are like a dating agency . You don't need bigmuscles of alphabay chaperoning you with your steady girlfriend, you get a room. Bitcoin is supposed to free us from financial tyranny, not shackle us to it.

I think the best option is FE and escrow listings for each product. During times of low confidence, there is a big price margin.

When I offered FE and escrow listings, customers would opt to FE nearly all the time, but I made it clear I wouldn't be offended if even regulars used escrow. Many customers just want to pay for their meth then forget it. They don't want to have to get past the capcha code and login and finalize when they're high. If the site is down, they panic that i'll be angry with them, even though I can't login either.


[2 Points] cheapassbulkshrooms:

"Exit scamming has turned into an art"

This phrase right here.

I've been a buyer since SR1 and I can remember the scammers back then didn't even have to sell anything. There was a mad rush of people joining the market and diving right in head first without thinking twice about feedback. They just wanted their drugs because 'goddamn I can't believe we're getting away with this!' I believe there was a vendor named Planet-something that literally walked away with over a $100K in btc and after the fact not a single buyer had received any product whatsoever.

Then there was DrMDA, that fucking bastard with the dirtiest nastiest looking MDA he claimed was 98% pure (don't even get me started), this motherfucker out of the blue claimed to have mastered the art of LSD manufacture immediately after going FE only. In a way, it was sort of brilliant, an evil genius kinda brilliant. It was the kind of sly shit we all face palmed at as soon as the fix was in. He got me $750 and I know he's still out there somewhere selling that shit colored MDA, fucking bastard.

Buyers need to be respectful of escrow too tho. Holding on to escrow unnecessarily or auto finalizing is what drives honest vendors to go FE only. So the door swings both ways.


[2 Points] Vendor_BBMC:

You spot scammers by their characteristic marketplace profiles and their relative disinterest in the actual drugs. I think they're less and less convincing, because they tend to emulate other successful scammers rather than real vendors.

If you get scammed a couple of times in a row, you've begun to think that scammer-speak is how real vendors speak. You're in for a run of bad luck when you start always buying from a "crew" who talk more about stealth than about drugs.

They can't quite bring themselves to appear inexperienced, so they're often "new, yet experienced somehow" and allude vaguely to some past experience.

REAL new drug vendors don't have a "reship policy" or know how to beat Australian customs on their first day. They don't have a laughable quasi-legal "by buying from "us" you accept the above terms and conditions" agreement. These are things scammers copy from scammers.

Like fuck we do. Fuck off, scam-dad.

Good vendors are all about the drugs, not about getting them there, or the envelope.

They're not anticipating shipping problems because they have drugs and will put them in an envelope. I know meth scammers the best, and meth scammers don't love the meth, and they don't respect the meth. I could talk about meth all day, that's why customers will FE all day for me. they don't FE for the shady new meth vendor who says his meth is "fire", and "burns clean". You don't "burn" crystal meth, so if you, the customer, know more about the drug than its vendor you should give them a wide berth.


[1 Points] None:

Don't ever FE if you have the choice of escrow. Even vendors I have FEd with before and had a good order I hesitate to go again. Just cuz I know anyone can scam at anytime. Worst are FE vendors that just "reship" you 50% after a month when they didn't even send your first pack


[1 Points] rail108:

A nice informative post :-)


[1 Points] tryptdn:

This is relevant now more than ever, as there are many FE-only vendors popping up with excellent prices.

From now on I'll only FE for overpriced listings :)