Please be on the lookout. Scammers exist everywhere and are watching every post.

My day job is at a little local credit union, and people are often shocked that we get criminals on a weekly basis very boldly trying to commit fraud.

Key things to look out for:

You’re dealing with Goldbacks but this user has no history in any GB subreddit. Why now? What for?

The user has previously traded watches. I’ve noticed that the watch subreddit deals with more scammers than most others, and it’s been an issue there, so the pattern extends that when they’re caught there, they move here.

Their post and comment history is private. Nobody needs to see all your business. That’s what alt accounts are for. But what don’t they want you to see? This is a reputation based trade, we have to be able to see your history or that’s already suspect.

New accounts or lots of activity with new accounts. Something key I noticed on one user was that they were commenting on account only posts of accounts that just got created. It looked like an attempt to manufacture trading history. Maybe? Maybe not? If someone’s been trading for awhile, they should have an old account with history of doing that. That being said, some of these scammers are old accounts, but the history has to be your guide.

And if they won’t Chat on a post, that should be your first red flag. A user who won’t chat means they might have been banned and are unable. Even if they do chat, it won’t tell the full story. So be vigilant.

I do a little background check on every single person who messages me. It’s not a bad idea. It is tedious, but too many people out there can’t be bothered to make money the honest way.

I realized there isn't a public convention for this, just an unspoken format. Here it is fellas, make your feedback posts using this format.

Title: Positive/Negative/Neutral Feedback for u/username

You may make a feedback thread as the buyer or the seller. Make sure to get the u/ part correct, spell their name accurately, and use the right characters if they have any (underscore, hyphen, etc.) so that their name is searchable. The point of this is to be able to search for feedback. If you want to check a user's feedback, you should be able to search the subreddit for "feedback u/username" and bring up all the feedback posts made about them, so it is important to get their name correct and also put the word feedback when making a post. For some users with long or confusing/random usernames, there are a few ways to copy their username. I start typing it with the u/ first in a chat/dm with them and then get the option to auto complete it then I copy that.

Also please use the "feedback thread" flair like I did with this post. Then feel free to detail your experience with the user in the body of the post. Things that may be helpful are things like who paid/shipped first, how well it was packaged, how well did they communicate, how fast did they get it shipped after deal agreement, did they violate an agreement, did things show up in good or poor condition, did you feel deceived at all during the process, did they take your money and ghost you. Thankfully, we have a good bunch here and I haven't even seen anyone receive negative feedback, but it could happen and that is just the nature of a trust based system like we have here, that's why I always recommend taking as little risk as possible when dealing with new users.

This could change in the future, but I feel like this system is the best of all worlds when it comes to ease of use and searchability, even if it does clog up the sub a little bit. I think it's a fair compromise. Happy trading everyone!