- Only communicate via private messaging on the forum. If your correspondences are kept within the forum, we can ban any identified scammers whenever necessary. Many scammers are repeat offenders and may already be known here by name(s) and/or email addresses.

- Don't post your email address, phone number, or any other direct contacts details in your WTB ad. This makes it very easy for scammers anywhere in the world to contact you.

- Don't wire transfer money, unless you have extensive references and verified information on the seller. Once your money is gone, it's not coming back regardless of your circumstances.

- Paying via Paypal (funded by a credit card) potentially provides two layers of protection.


- Don't pay using the "Gift" option in Paypal, since this offers no Paypal buyer protection. Set your transaction to use "Product" instead. If the seller wants you to cover their Paypal fees, simply increase the total amount by 3-4% instead of checking "Gift".

- Only log in to Paypal by going to https://www.paypal.com/ Never click any payment related links provided by a seller or even an email claiming to come from Paypal. Everything you require can be accessed by going directly to Paypal via your own bookmark or simply typing the address.

- Research research research! (your seller). Start by searching for their name here. When necessary, you can even start a thread to ask other members about their experiences.

- Google stalk your seller. Learn everything you can. This is similar to the point above, but it's worth repeating. If you're about to transfer thousands of dollars to someone you've never met, you owe it to yourself to spend 5-10 minutes doing a background check. Search for their email address from within Facebook, do Google searches, Twitter, Google+, other watch forums, etc. This step may end up saving you a lot of lost money and time.



Typed this up pretty quick, there could be errors... What have I missed?

 

Moving this to forum-news to gather member input as well.

 

Ad some simple explanation about being cautious using auto-complete when typing in paypal, least any previous scam link used pop up on the address bar. (Yes folks don't understand that)

 

I guess the biggest thing is don't ever be afraid to ask people whether publicly or privately about a person before a sale. If people ask about George, Mike, Norm or others you'll see people jump in with a response and say yea, we know the guy he's been around for ages etc, and its not an offensive thing or rude to do that.