I Got Scammed On Paxful Buying Bitcoin — Here’s How

3 min readApr 10, 2022

On March 9th I was looking for a way to fund my crypto wallet out of Paypal. Looking online I found no exchanges accepting Paypal as a payment method.

Paxful was the only option. Paxful is a global trading platform where you can safely buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, & Tether from millions of users, using 350+ payment methods.

Because I have bought some Bitcoin on the platform before I felt comfortable making another purchase. Here’s the story of how I got scammed, I hope you learn something from it and don’t fall for scams just like I did.

How it works: You open an offer to buy bitcoins, a vendor accepts, and Paxful lock the vendor’s coins until the transaction is done.

I opened an offer to buy $320 worth of Bitcoin. A guy named John asked me to pay through Paypal which I did.

Paxful holds their Bitcoin until the process is done to prevent fraud. But John showed me a screenshot that he received $305 instead of $320. I thought that’s normal, I’ve been through the same issue when I sell my spreadsheet where I usually get $16 instead of $20.

He proceeds to tell me that I need to cancel the trade, so he could open a second offer for the $305 without me knowing that John was full of shit.

I canceled the trade, which gave john back his funds. Then the shitshow started, he told me that he was going to provide a link to the new offer, but what he was actually doing is withdrawing his funds from Paxful before a report would be sent.

I am sharing this because I know that when people get scammed they usually don’t share it because they feel ashamed. I hope y’all learn a thing or two from my mistakes.

If you find yourself in the same situation, DO NOT cancel the trade. That will only give them access back to their funds. That’s the only thing that can save you.

Below I provide screenshots of the whole conversation.