How do you securely conduct a trade with someone?

I’ve used a low-cost escrow service like Quikescrow. Worked like a charm.

I have a hobby where I do trades fairly regularly for items with far more value than anything in the gear forum. It is primarily based on trust. Have a phone conversation and get to know the person a bit. Read their previous posts on the forum to get a sense of who they are. I think it will be pretty obvious in the unlikely scenario that someone has posted a WTT ad on BPL as a scam.

Scams tend to to be a newbie offering a ridiculously good deal and are often kind of tone-deaf on UL concepts.  And/or written in Nigenglish (by which I’m trying to invoke Nigerian grammar and NOT the n-word).

On BPL, you can just click on their profile and see what other kinds of posts they’ve had for how long and get a good sense of them as a BPL community member.   If, for instance, I’ve written  my 5,801 responses over the last 9 years just to scam someone next month, maybe I’ve earned it?

Quikescrow sounds like a pretty safe option.

Great suggestions all. Thank you!

“On BPL, you can just click on their profile and see what other kinds of posts they’ve had for how long and get a good sense of them as a BPL community member.”

I cannot count how many times doing this has informed my decision to engage or not. Very few reliable, honest people suddenly become crooks.  Very rarely an unusually devastating economic, medical or emotional event causes someone to do so, but my experience is that scammers tend to quickly show up and disappear just as quickly…or at least their online identity does.

@dan-s said it well.  Buyer, or in this case trader, beware.

QwikEscrow looks great, but how does it work for a trade? It seems oriented toward buying and selling.