Just a few questions (maybe they're stupid). I have a source or two but they are not listed on the scam sources thread and there is very little mention of them anywhere on the internet. The order process seems legitimate,hushmail, etc, etc. is it safe to assume they're legitimate?
well man, its hard to say. technically it could be a scam but only way is to try it out. if i were you i would maybe order the bare minimum to see. but it could be a scam mate
Yeah, just try a small order. If they're legit, they'll understand that you don't wanna part with $300 right away. They could always be selective scammers, though.
well some scammers will send samples and then rip off the big orders to gain trust.... You could pm someone though and ask if they know, they could be good, but could just as eaily be a scam. be careful brosef.
I am by no means an expert, but I think this should help. This is what I've learned in my short time being around. None of it is sure-fire though, there's always going to be some risk, especially of the 'semi-vendors' that people mention. -Do a whois lookup on the domain. How long has it been registered, and who is it registered to? Google the name of the person, see what that digs up. The longer the site has been around the better, usually. There are some long-running scams but those seem to be well-known. -Location. In the US = immediate distrust. Sometimes it takes a little digging to find true location - one vendor claimed to be Canadian yet wanted WU transfers to be sent to Texas. Nuh uh, sorry. -Pricing: tricky. If the smallest order is $300, don't bother, even if they look legitimate otherwise. As people said, start small. First order should be under $100, but also beware of prices that seem too low. The only way to judge this is to look at a bunch of sites to get a feel for averages (I wouldn't go around asking what average prices for things are...) -Website design: this one is tricky to judge too. The most consistently good advice is to avoid flashy sites and sites that advertise. -'Advertising' on Tradekey is not an indication of a scam necessarily, but the great majority of the listings on those sites are scams. Check to see how long the listing has been posted. -Use your gut feeling, do your own research, don't go around pestering people, and be prepared to lose money. Even UD, when it's up, is not completely reliable.
Well I'm feeling pretty confident now. Smallest order <$100 Outside of the US Website design seems legitimate (IMO) Googling the vendors first & last name yields his personal facebook Is there a minimum post limit to be able to PM?
Not really a post limit, I think a mod has to enable it for you. The postcount requirement seems to change for different people.
one relatively effective method i've used is google searching the name of the sight or proprietor in quotes and the word scam. If the site or person is a scammer, odds are they've scammed someone else before, and this person has probably mentioned it somewhere on the web. Obviously fake names and changing of domain names can circumvent this method, but it can certainly help when used in conjunction with the methods mentioned above
If you use google to verify sources for the most part you will get bullshit info. A lot of legit sources get spammed and called scammers by the real scammers. The best thing you can do is find someone trusted with lots of connects and get them to verify for you. I am working on a system that will allow for this to happen pretty safely and going to try and get it integrated into undrugged. It works like this. Undrugged will keep a list of hashes of the vendors on your vendor list, for example, the sha-512 hash of notarealsource@thisisntreal.com is 3a311531a842c3a1d304846ce1293c26100e7e519f6ac4078d2d1b471485bb6a7a56b8caf9b2fd7123181a8d21cb2ca2d50b119583fc4016fda7dead32a0c903 So that will be stored next to the vendors in your vendor list (which it seems they are going to be encrypting so w00t). Then if a noob finds a source they want to verify, they can hash the source so if the source is the notreal one I mentioned earlier, they just give someone the hash 3a311531a842c3a1d304846ce1293c26100e7e519f6ac4078d2d1b471485bb6a7a56b8caf9b2fd7123181a8d21cb2ca2d50b119583fc4016fda7dead32a0c903 and the person can plug it into undrugged and see if it is on their vendor list and if it is what one it is, then they can give independent reviews off of undrugged and that way people can talk about sources with each other and trade sources with out risking trading a source someone already has.
