How to spot a scam
Nearly every marketplace scam has the same four parts: a price well below market, a reason they cannot meet in person, a demand to pay by a method that cannot be reversed, and a story that does not match the listing.
The red flags
- Asks for a wire transfer, gift cards, Zelle or Cash App to someone you have never met.
- The price is dramatically below what the item is worth.
- The other person is overseas, deployed, or traveling, and cannot meet.
- They push the conversation off Jinu almost immediately.
- Messages feel scripted, arrive instantly at any hour, or have odd phrasing.
- They send a link to verify your identity or confirm a deal.
- A buyer offers to pay more than you asked.
- A landlord cannot show the property and offers to post the keys.
- Extreme urgency: someone else is supposedly about to take it.
- They ask you to read back a code that was texted to you.
- They will send a courier to collect the item and pay afterwards.
- They direct you to a specific escrow or payment-protection website.
The one that beats all the others: pressure
A real buyer or seller can wait until tomorrow. Someone who cannot is either not real or is not going to be a good person to deal with anyway. Slowing down costs you a sale you probably did not want. Speeding up is the whole scam.
What Jinu never does
- Jinu does not take payment for a sale between two members and does not hold money in escrow.
- Jinu does not send payment confirmations for a member sale, so an email claiming your funds are secured is fake.
- Jinu never asks you to send a verification code to another user, and never asks you to sign in through a link in a chat.
- Jinu does not arrange couriers or collect delivery fees.
Local cash in person is the safest way to do this, and it is free forever: Jinu takes 0% of a local sale.
What Jinu does automatically
Messages are checked against known scam patterns. Risky ones show the sender a warning before they send, the worst are refused outright, and matches are filed into the moderation queue. It catches a lot. It is not a guarantee, and it cannot see a conversation that has moved to another app.
If you meet one
Stop replying, report the conversation and the listing, and block the account. The full detail on each pattern is in the rest of this section, and what to do if you have already lost money is in I think I have been scammed. What is not allowed on Jinu at all is in prohibited items and the community guidelines.