How can OTC scams affect you?
"Am I being absurd? No. Should I be worrying? Yes. If I sell in the morning, I've only lost a couple hundred dollars, and   learned a valuable lesson. Is there any reason to believe it won't be   that simple? If you're lucky, you'll be able to dump your stocks to someone like you who'll be punching himself in the face tomorrow night. If not - you're stuck. You may end up selling them to your broker as worthless. You might have become a victim of a ""pump and dump"" fraud. Those are hard to identify in real-time, but after been burned like that myself (for much lesser amounts than you though), I avoid any ""penny"" stocks that go up for no apparent (and verifiable) reason. In fact, I avoid them altogether."
If your concern is scams, we should be talking about counterparties, not bitcoin itself. Unless you think the protocol itself is a scam, which imo it most certainly is not.  You're conflating the trustworthiness of counterparties with the trustworthiness of the underlying protocol, which imo is not a very good model to operate by.  You'll understand the situation better of you look at them independently.  Bitcoin isn't trying to be a credit agency or the better business bureau, it's just trying to be digital money.  Don't expect it to protect you from scams any more than cash will.  That's not its job, and does not affect its trustworthiness as money. It is absolutely a scam.  Anyone who tells you they can give you a large amount of money for free is trying to scam you.  Additional warning signs include: "&gt; The father-son team ultimately lost more than $140 million.  &gt; If the plea agreements are accepted by a judge, the two could face between two and five years in prison.  If I punched a man in the face with brass knuckles and robbed him, I would surely get more then 2-5 years.  These assholes scammed folks out of 140M+ and they get 2-5 years.  As my ole law professor said ""how much justice can you afford?""" The product descriptions for FFA swaps and options can be found here:  http://www.lchclearnet.com/freight/ffas/products.asp The index (e.g. the BFA) is based on the settlement prices of the P2, P2A, and C4 contracts and the panamax TC routes.  As such it's just a performance index and replicates the returns you'd get from holding a portfolio of the constituents. I think from the clearing descriptions everything should be clear.  The wording in the link on the Baltic Exchange website is a bit nebulous.  I think they mean standardised instead of specified.  Because that's what sets the FFABA apart from OTC agreements or OTC spot markets. Edit: For more information on financial instruments in general see the Handbook of Financial Instuments.  I haven't got the latest edition but I doubt he will mention FFAs, CFSAs, or anything that's specific to maritime markets but after all they're just plain forward agreements over a not-so-common underlying. Some (most) credit cards have a way to get a one-time use number. If that is an available option for one of your cards, that is probably the way to do the very risky transaction. These numbers can be good for only one purchase, or for multiple purchases with a single vendor. This will limit your exposure because they won't have access to your entire account. Also review your fraud protections with your credit card. With the single use number, it won't matter if you use the electronic form or the email. Just make sure you keep the confirmation email or a screen capture of the form. Because it's a con. People give you money because you promise them more money, and then you walk away with their money. There are more steps but they don't matter.  You can probably ignore the MLM drone who doesn't realize he's a cover for abusing those hyped kids. These companies are minimally different from outright fraud. If a business repeatedly assurse you it's legal, that's a warning.   You can definitely ignore the edgelords whining about government. They probably lose a ton of money from people making innocent mistakes, too. A few weeks ago I was was at the self checkout register at Target and swiped a $20 roast. I swear I heard it ding in my head,  even though it didn't actually scan, but luckily the employee was paying attention and asked me if I was going to pay for it. I felt like an asshole, but I'm glad she was there to say something so I know to pay more attention next time. The typical scam is that they overpay you - 'accidentially', or for some obscure reason they claim, and they ask you to wire the extra money either back or to someone else. Because you wire it, that money is gone for sure. Then they undo the original transaction (or it turns out it was fake anyway), and you end up with a loss. Maybe he claims that he wants to buy some more stuff, and the fees are high, so he sends you all the payments in one amount, and you pay the other sellers from it, something like that. There are honest nigerians though, actually most of them. Either way, the real problem is that the original payment is fake. Whichever way it comes to you, you need to make sure that it cannot be reversed or declared invalid after you think you have it. Wire transfer is the only way I know that is not reversible. Bank transfers are reversible; don't think you have it just because it arrives in your bank account. Talk to your bank about what all can happen. If you make the deal, when you send the bike, think about insuring it (and make him pay for that too). That way, you are out of any loss risk.