A guide to online buying/selling on discussion boards

A guide to online buying/selling on discussion boards, aka forums:

To make it more difficult for potential scammers to be less anonymous when dealing with buy/sell, ask them to PM (private message) you instead of contacting via mobile.

Here's why:

• People who want to deal with you have to register an account with the forum.

• This makes it easier for them to be tracked down with the help of forum administrators and moderators, rather than having to track down someone who could be using a prepaid line that can be easily discarded.

• You will get to see the person's track record, if any. Members with "quality" posts (i.e. those who don't just rack up post counts by bumping their own sale threads) are likely to be more trustable. 

• It makes it easier for you to Google your potential buyer/seller first to see if they could be trouble. If you can't find any info about them at all, whether good or bad, you should be on your guard as well.

• If the deal is too good to be true, it usually is.

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If you are buying or selling a big ticket item (or if it is costly enough to you) and a member with a low post count contacts you for the sale, you may want to do a more thorough check as follows.

Request for his mobile number and/or email address. You may have to come up with a relevant and logical reason for asking for his email address.

From there, and in the meantime:

1. Run a Google search with his mobile number/email address. Note that other than using Google, you may want to consider using Facebook's search bar with his email address, as it may also give you an insight into the person you are going to deal with.
2. If there are results, check what other usernames, if any, that he has across various forums, or anywhere else on the Internet. You will be checking for his internet footprints to see if he seems ok to conduct a deal with. 
3. If nothing much turns up, you may have to dig a bit deeper if the email address or number he provided appears to indicate a link to another username (Google this other username), which in turn leads to another email address for you to check up on. Do note that sometimes, search result "gems" will only turn up on the 3rd or 4th page of the results.

Is doing all these worth the effort? Probably only if it is worth your while for the item that you intend to buy/sell. Or if you have time to spare.

Hope this helps! Cheers.