Hello and Namaste Everyone
Peer-to-peer aka P2P is a very popular method of buying and selling crypto. Its available in many countries and India is also provided by so many exchanges. Its easy and convenient because we can buy or sell as per our price if there are buyers or sellers and we get the fiat currency in a bank account. In India, one can sell or buy crypto using international exchanges through p2p. The crypto exchange does not charge anything and provides this service free of cost. This way exchanges are trying to help the Crypto community to get their order processed with fiat currency which I think is good and certainly the process is also very easy to use.
Most of the international exchanges are providing this facility in India and also Indian exchanges have been providing the same for a long. As per the tax rules in the country, even peer-to-peer transactions are liable for the tax hence people started using international exchanges because most of them are not registered with the government. Performing the same transaction in an Indian exchange can attract taxation because Indian exchanges are compliant with the regulations and they deduct the tax as per the applicable law.
Scammers in P2P
I was reading some of the articles about peer-to-peer trading in India and I was surprised to see that now it is a segment where most of the scammers are operating. People try to cheat users and this is resulting in their bank account freeze. There are different scenarios through which scammers are cheating users in peer to peer trading market-
In one scenario the transaction happens successfully where the Fiat money is received by the seller and equivalent crypto is also released after the payment confirmation. The buyer who paid credit currency files for cyber criminal report after a day or more that results in the account freeze of the seller. Although there was nothing wrong in this situation the buyer got the Crypto and the sailor got the fiat money because the buyer was not honest and he was a scammer so he reported the transfer to the cyber police. Based on the scenarios and case history available on the Internet the cyber crime police plan the account immediately after the report without doing any investigation. It's like they buy an account even if the person is not involved in any illegal transaction because crypto trading is not illegal but since the ban is happening it is creating a lot of chaos for the users.
In another situation the money is paid to another party but Crypto is not released and since the buyer did not provide the original documents to exchange because the account K Y C was done we take the so he is not bothered about the account. Even if he's exchange appointment banned then also not a problem because he made money and he can use fake documentation to create another account.
In both cases, we have the option to report to the exchange but unfortunately exchange does not have anything to do here because they are just a platform and they are providing a medium to transact but they are not involved and they are also not doing anything. A lot of people are facing the account freeze because of scammers in this market and this is a very problematic situation.
Solution
The only solution I can say is that we should avoid reading through P2P in exchanges because the majority of people are scams. It's better to deal with someone who you can rely on and he is very well known because at least he will not do something wrong and this way we can save our account ban. There are so many people buying crypto especially stable points on high and we can sell them because they are known and I hope they will not do anything wrong. Although I don't sell much and rarely perform any peer-to-peer transactions whenever I do I try to connect with people who are reliable and so far I have never transacted on the exchange P2P platform.
I will be trying to read more about it because it is an interesting topic where I think awareness is very important and I hope people read such information about the Internet to save themselves. It's a problematic situation and it's better to be careful rather than get stuck and get cheated by these scammers.
Thank you so much
Stay Safe