Hi all

Don't let my low dread score fool you. I've been lurking here for a number of years and have purchased various drugs for both resale and personal use from a long, long list of markets (most of which have shut down now). Despite my regular activity, I have never once been successfully scammed by a vendor or caught out in an exit scam, nor have I ever had to deal with law enforcement (LE). While luck must have been on my side somewhat, especially in the beginning, there are definitely some steps you can take to make your own luck in this nefarious game.

The purpose of this post is to give you a comprehensive breakdown of how to remain safe, avoid scams (vendor scams, exit scams etc.) and steps you can take to claw back your crypto from the vendor when you have been scammed (I've had to do this too).

First and foremost - understand the dynamics of an exit scam, and use this knowledge to do your due diligence.

Exit scams often come out of the blue, but there are usually warning signs and these will be noticed and shared on Dread a while before the point of no return. Vendors are usually the main victims of an exit scam, it's rare that a buyer gets caught out. This is because once the site admin decides it's time to exit scam, they will simply turn off the tap for people to withdraw funds and not tell anyone. Or, they may tell people there is a bug or that they're doing some essential maintenance on the withdrawal functionality to reduce panic and buy some extra time. Sometimes, there is genuinely a bug or maintenance. Typically, vendors will still take orders and ship products for at least a couple days while this is going on, it's only after it's been happening for a while that they will start taking steps to protect their interest. This is NOT me advising that you continue using a market while there is uncertainty in the forums. My advice is that you steer clear and buy from somewhere else, it's very likely your vendor is on other markets. If you trust them, you could even buy directly from their personal store - however there's less recourse there if you get scammed. The point I'm trying to make is that while a market could exit scam at any moment, it's usually a long enough process that any outstanding orders you made before the signs appeared should still be shipped. As a buyer, you really shouldn't ever be getting caught out by an exit scam. Whether or not the vendor receives the money is their problem to deal with. That said, as a courtesy, release the escrow as soon as your hands are on the product.

TLDR; before any purchase, check Dread for warning signs of an exit scam. If there is any reason to suspect there may be an exit scam, simply buy elsewhere or wait it out. A lot of the time it is FUD, but there's hardly ever reason you should take that gamble.

Secondly - know your vendor.

There used to be a great website for this called Recon, which would monitor vendors across markets and collate reviews. Without this, the markets themselves are now the best source for this. You will typically get basic ratings and some markets will also include stats on current outstanding and disputed orders. It could be that a reputable vendor is exit-scamming, so if you see that they have a high number of open disputes currently, avoid them. Similarly, don't trust small vendors with hardly any orders or reviews. It's a shame that some bad apples out there ruin the chances for small vendors, the lack of trust makes it hard to make a break and hit the big leagues... However, as a buyer, that is not your problem. Don't trust small vendors with not many reviews, some of those reviews will be fake - especially if they're all written in roughly the same way. That said, don't let fake reviews throw you off either, they could be a legit vendor who has accepted they have to kiss a few frogs to lure in their first customers; don't hate the player, hate the game. The trick really is just make sure that RECENT reviews are mostly positive and that the dispute count is low (or at least the win rate is high).

TLDR; check recent reviews, ratings, dispute numbers, win rate for your vendor. Markets provide these numbers and, provided there are enough orders/reviews that it can't be fake, it's a reliable way to know whether the vendor is legit

Thirdly - don't use international shipping.

This might be a moment for me to check my big country privilege, but if this can apply to you then it should. International shipping gets nasty, law enforcement working for customs generally have a lot more power to search/scan packages coming in to the country, security is a lot tighter and random spot checks can sometimes even take place depending on the country. The last thing you want is for border officials to have a parcel full of drugs literally with your name and address on it. They know drug dealers aren't charitable and randomly sending drugs to your house... They will know you asked for it. Domestic mail is much smoother, they're delivered by mailmen with no power and no law enforcement involvement. It's far safer. Also, domestic postage should arrive sooner, not only is this convenient for you but it also means long delays are unjustifiable so your vendors can't buy time with excuses hoping that the escrow will expire before you dispute the order. Unless you absolutely must buy internationally, do not do it. Don't let foreign prices fool you into getting arrested/scammed.

TLDR; international shipping has a much higher risk of law enforcement intercepting your package as it goes through customs and longer expected delivery times can be exploited by scamming vendors who wish to feed you excuses to maintain your trust until the escrow expires.

Fourth - if tracked shipping is an option, use it.

Yes, it costs a little more but it works in your favor if you need to dispute the order. New accounts on a market will typically lose disputes if they don't get tracked shipping and then they complain the package never arrived. Too many people will try this just to score free drugs, markets are aware of this and will of course side with the reputable vendor who makes them money over some new account who has a high likelihood of themselves being a scammer. If you pay for tracked shipping, the vendor can share this with the market admin who will then be able to confirm that either it's still in transit and has just been delayed, or if the vendor can't provide a tracking ID the market will be forced to rule in your favor. As long as it's a reputable vendor you're dealing with because you followed Step 2, it's unlikely the vendor will provide a fake tracking ID just to scam you.

Fifth - if you do get scammed, give the vendor plenty of time to assist you, collect evidence THEN dispute.

I've had to do this once. I was sent a different, far cheaper product than what I had ordered. I first raised it with the vendor who replied very slowly and repeatedly asked for pointless information like the order number, the product I was expecting and so on. As the escrow deadline approached, I was at this point convinced the vendor was just buying time. I delayed the escrow as the market I was on allowed me to do that, and I was totally co-operative with the vendor until the last minute. This means I was on the market daily, always making sure I was providing the information the vendor requested promptly. This means the market admins couldn't possibly make the case that I was being unreasonable, unfair or not co-operating. This was a reputable vendor that I was dealing with (who is still active today! It was the UK vendor PremierLeague) so I knew I'd need an ironclad argument. As the second escrow deadline approached, I scoured through thousands of their reviews to find others who had the exact same treatment, taking screenshots and uploading them to a tor-based image hosting service. I then disputed the order and laid out my case, with screenshots. It was such a solid case that the vendor gave me the 100% refund I requested before the site moderators could get involved - I guess PremierLeague didn't want the admins to see that he was what's called a "selective scammer" where a vendor will scam a small portion of people so that bad reviews are easy to ignore.

TLDR; don't be trigger happy with the dispute button, be kind to your scammer and give them as much time as possible to rectify things and regularly prompt them to do so. Find and screenshot reviews of other victims and share with the market when you dispute. All your communications will be looked at by the market admins, you don't want to look like an emotional crybaby or impatient. You want to look cool, calm, collected and above all else CORRECT.

Thank you one and all for reading. If you follow these steps, you shouldn't get caught out in any sort of scam. Bad luck does exist, but you make your own luck and if I can survive >5 years regularly ordering things on the dark net without being successfully scammed, then so can you.

Peace out newbies!