Across the Darknet, you can find an endless supply of anything the digital underworld has to offer. Countless online shops sell every type of drug, weapons (including 3D-printed ones), ammunition, malware, forged or stolen documents, and, of course, a wide range of criminal services.
But what happens when the seller isn’t who they claim to be? What happens when you pay for a product or service that never arrives?
Congratulations! You’ve become a victim of an exit scam, also known as the perfect crime. After all, who exactly are you going to complain to when your illegal goods never show up?
That’s why buyers rely on several essential checks before making any purchase in high-risk environments.
How do you do that?
Estimate the seller’s track record:
Many forums display live counters showing how many sales a vendor has made for each product. Follow these numbers for a few days to see if there are inconsistencies or sudden changes.If it seems too good to be true, it is:
Prices can’t be drastically lower than the market average. Competition is high, and the risks are even higher.Reviews, reviews, and more reviews:
There are sites and forums dedicated to reviewing darknet markets - Reddit, or its darknet counterpart “Dread”, for example.
There are Telegram groups for verification, chats discussing new and old forums, and even clearnet sites that categorize underground markets based on user reviews.If there aren’t enough reviews, if the site is too new, not well-known, or if something feels off, just walk away. It’s not worth the risk of being scammed at best, arrested in a worse scenario, or physically harmed in the worst-case scenario.
Use escrow services:
In the darknet ecosystem, third-party escrow services act as trusted intermediaries to ensure that payments and deliveries are handled properly.
The buyer sends funds to the escrow, which notifies the seller but only releases the payment after the buyer confirms they’ve received the order and are satisfied. Once everything checks out, the escrow releases the money to the vendor and completes the transaction.In any case, it’s always wise to rely on reputable directories and dedicated resources to verify marketplaces and reach the legitimate ones - for example, Dark.Fail, which provides a reliable, automatically updated list of the most current darknet links.
DarkSignal’s Closing Thoughts
In the end, in a world where anyone can pretend to be someone else, trust is the real currency, and even the smallest mistake can come at a heavy cost.
To me, understanding how these scams operate isn’t just professional curiosity but a necessary layer of protection in an era where the line between criminal and victim is thinner than ever.