That's easy.

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It makes me feel better to buy from someone that is established within the community as a trustworthy seller. Check with the individual and try to procure references or people who have bought, sold, or traded with the individual previously.

Welcome to Pinside! Start with this thread if you want the long story on what not to do: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-to-not-get-ripped-off-in-pinball-vids-guide/

There is a lot of info in there. TLDR: don't buy/sell sight unseen and only pay/accept cash.

Since the pm was in response to your wanted post, you can look at a number of things to qualify the seller as legit:
Length of time on pinside
have they donated - indicated by a red heart
# of posts - and are they real posts, or just one word replies
# of sales ads
etc.

Best thing to do is get their phone number and speak to them directly, maybe facetime the machine.

Since it is your first machine, I recommend only buying one you have seen and played. There can be a lot of miscommunications and expectations missed between a newbie and an experienced pinballer, usually it's not intentional or nefarious, but it can be.

GL!

Could you please open a moderator feedback thread and give us the username of the person who contacted you? One of the moderators would then be able to take a closer look at the account.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/forum/moderator-feedback

You were hit by a PM from a scammer where they say something like:

"My friend has the pin you're looking for. E-mail him at [email protected]"

Once you do send them an e-mail and you essentially move communication off of Pinside, it's much harder for Pinside to alert you when our system detects scammer messaging patterns. I.e. someone selling the same game to multiple people simultaneously.

I have decided, starting today, to hide e-mail addresses and phone numbers in all PM messages coming from non-verified members. Just an extra measure because these scammers often try these tricks. So when you see [e-mail removed] or [phone number removed] in a PM message, that means it was sent from a non-verified account as an extra pointer to please be careful.

Pinside does their utmost to keep scammers from our platform, but ultimately you'll also need some common sense.

When Pinside sends out a scammer alert, you can be 99% SURE that that someone is in fact a scammer and I would cut off all communications with them.

Some more advice:
- A Pinsider being VERIFIED means they confirmed their identity ia a payment using a verified Paypal or Stripe account. This DOES NOT mean they're 100% legit. Always keep in mind that a Pinside account CAN BE HACKED and a scammer could potentially use any verified account to conduct their "business".
- NEVER send money friends and family to someone who is NOT a friend or family. You pay less, but you loose all safety options.
- Don't communicate off of Pinside. If someone asks you to text them or e-mail them, DON'T. As long as you communicate via PinsideMail, our systems can help you identify scammers.
- Stay levelheaded, even if an amazing opportunity comes up. Do your due diligence and only send money the safe way. Picking up is ALWAYS better than shipping.
- Check out Vids guide on how not to get ripped off (linked above).

It's a shame that scammers sometimes find their way to Pinside, even with the tons of precautions I have already implemented. Stay safe and don't loose your hard earned money to these bastards.

Got any more ideas we could implement to make Pinside completely scammer-proof? Let me know! Via a PM message to me privately, or here, in this thread!

It seems scammers will stop replying or "go dark" if you ask for information they cannot provide. Maybe you can also implement a flag trigger based on time since last response. But you would need to somehow exempt that if the conversation is over to avoid flagging PM hreads incorrectly.