Why does FE seem to be the standard now?

So I've taken a bit of a break from the markets and now it seems like 99% of the vendors on any market require FE. I seem to remember a while ago everyone saying never FE, and that it's a really stupid thing to do. But now everyone's doing it. What happened?


Comments


[4 Points] sinn0304:

New motto: Don't ever FE on money you can't afford to lose.
But since you shouldn't even be spending money on the DNM that you can't afford to lose, FE'ing should not cause life or death situations, but rather only temporary anger due to be ripped off.


[1 Points] Vendor_QuickLick:

It seems the trend is that if you are uncertain of the security of the market.. or have had bad experiences in the past, you would most likely want the funds cleared into your private wallet before dispatching.

If the vendor allows the site to hold the funds they should be entitled to more coin for the risk. That is fair, based on the amount of sites that have gone offline with large amounts of BTC in escrow.

QL


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] coffeencreme:

So many exit scams. Buyers being too lazy to finalize properly. I don't like it, I use escrow, otherwise you are literally sending a stranger on the internet money and hoping they honour their side of the deal. And even established vendors exit scam.

I guess if you have to FE never FE more than you can easily write off if you lose it.


[1 Points] None:

Back in the day, the mindset seemed to be that if you had to trust someone in this process, trust the market. Scammers were/are common but marketplaces seemed to have some staying power. SR1 went down, and of course SR2 went down, and sheep was a scam from the start, but we have Agora now! Who wouldnt trust agora?

But now its different. Its become painfully obvious that markets are not entirely safe. In some cases, a market may be more likely to disappear than a vendor.

Vendors can practice some good opsec and it'd be very hard to bust them. Markets though? Theyre the weakest link in this chain at this point. LE has basically proven to us that if we give them enough time, theyll find the IP of a market through either traffic analysis or their catalog of zero-day exploits.

That, and the temptation to exit scam for a market is wayyy stronger. TGUK was hyped up by everyone on here as the biggest in the game but says he had 100K in total revenue over like two weeks. 2 years ago sheep ran away with 100 million! I mean, you can stand here and be principled and say "I'd never scam, never ever!" But when 100 Million dollars is literally a click away, I have to believe anyone would be tempted, and the vast majority would opt to anonymously run away with the money.

Thats why I never trust markets. I've been buying from the same people for a while, all great to work with; I trust them more than any market.


[1 Points] ravendarkh0lme:

I do it because I want a better deal and I want it here faster. I only use "trusted" vendors that have been around for a while. And I don't spend more than I can afford to lose.


[1 Points] bodhi_mind_spirt:

Basically, the market has shifted from stable markets and potential scammers to unstable markets and potential scammers. With the fluctuation of market stability, many vendors don't want to risk thousands of dollars in BTC to escrow in case a market wants to exit scam so the pressure is increased on the buyer to FE which you should almost never do.


[0 Points] None:

FE is not a bad thing. Like ninja said, buyers seemingly cant be trusted with escrow and it's more time a vendors money can possibly be taken by a market scam.

If you were HF would you want 70% of your business to be held up in Alphabay Escrow when they finally take the plunge?


[-1 Points] None:

[deleted]