Post
Topic
Board Trading Discussion
Re: How safe is localbitcoins?
by
CoinOn
on 22/09/2017, 20:07:32 UTC
Hi,

I am using localbitcoins for the first time , deposited some btc , created an ad for western union payments and left it open.
Few minutes later when I came , I noticed that 0,5 btc were deducted from my account, a random guy has left a message giving me his email and marked payment as complete, I started the dispute and did not release the bitcoins but they were already deducted.

I quickly wrote a message to support explaining the situation ,
can someone tell me if this is an usual thing there and what are the chances of getting scammed like this?

UPDATE :

During the trade buyer made a scam attempt where he marked as payment complete , meanwhile during the process of trade bitcoins are not actually deducted but "reserved" and held until the payment is complete OR the payment window ends(which can take hours).

It took me ~5 hours to get my bitcoins back , beware of scammers out there!

I guess you have to be careful.  I've used it several times before and haven't ran into any trouble.  If they have feedback, the rating system I think is a good way to judge how well the transaction might go.