UPDATE: as of 23.2.2022 Dark0de Market has officialy exit scammed and is gone for good.
Many darknet markets have either willingly shut down or engaged in an exit scam in recent months. First, in October, White House Market went offline, followed by Cannazon and ToRReZ Market. Monopoly and Cartel Market both went offline and did not return just a few weeks ago, in early 2021.
All of this drove Dark0de Market to the top of the darknet markets list, with World Market fighting for the top slot. However, it has become clear in recent weeks that Dark0de Market is taking funds from consumers and merchants and is poised to launch a ‘exit scam,’ as many other markets have done before.
Vendors Accuse Dark0de Market
Over the last few weeks, scores of vendors have accused Dark0de Market of blocking their accounts, stealing their funds, and failing to answer to support tickets; these are just a few examples of Dark0de Market vendor accusations.
“My account as well as 10-15 others were banned last week. I was told I wasn’t responding to my disputes, which is false, but your house your rules, I’m banned that’s fine. I had $2000+ in my wallet, and $4000 in escrow.
The orders in escrow were cancelled and refunded, that’s acceptable.
However, the $2000 in my wallet I was blocked from withdrawing a week before the ban. Most of this money I deposited in from my own funds for ads and promo on the front page, this is my money.
I’ve asked /u/Dark0deReborn several times about how I can recover these funds, I was banned from both sub-dreads, and now my messages are ignored.
I’ve reached out in every possible communication channel, I’ve been polite, I’ve been concise. I just want my money /u/Dark0deReborn please and thank you.
You say that you don’t steal from vendors, this money you have stolen.”
One vendor have wrote that over 10 vendors have been banned just last week with his own account having 6,000$ on the market, with the excuse of him not responding to disputes.
I have over 7500 sales and like 1 negative review.
Earlier today i politely asked them why another vendor was tagging my name in their listings, apparently thats fine?
Now theyve stolen all my escrow money and closed my diamond account.
They closed my support ticket with no reply.
What the fuck.
LittleBits
LittleBits, one of the biggest vendors in the darknet world with over 7500 sales, and just 1 bad review account has been banned as well with no reason given and his account has even been banned on Dark0de Market forum and his message deleted there.
Our withdrawals have been disabled for over a week. Contacted support they said we had reports that 2 customers received empty parcels (this was 100% a Royal Mail issue – but fair enough, we will take responsibility).
Straight away I got these parcels reshipped anyway. Both landed and customers changed their feedbacks back to 5-star. Happy days.
5 days later our withdrawals are still very much disabled.
Support finally responded earlier to say we are on a 2-week trial to see how things go. Definitely wont be taking orders during this “2-week trial” so I’m not sure what happens next.
It seems as though our funds (~$10k) will be held as ransom in the mean time. If you do end up stealing it, maybe pay your devs enough to implement a dispute system for FE orders. This could of all been settled in a dispute fashion rather than like this.
Another vendors withdraws have been disable, with 10,000$ held in ransom for a “2 week trial”, all the while his rating are a perfect 5 star.
Users Not Able to Withdraw Funds
One of the first signals that a darknet market is launching a ‘exit scam’ is when the market suspends all withdrawals while continuing to accept payments. Dark0de Market has been notoriously bad at sending users their funds, simply because all withdrawals are processed manually by the markets admin, but in recent weeks it has gone to the extreme, with users and vendors having to wait for more than 48 hours at best, and some users’ withdrawals never being processed.
I had made one order prior to this one on Dark0de reborn with this vendor with no issue but I made a BTC direct payment for an order today (over five hours ago now), and I’m still getting the message:
“Confirming…
Your deposit, 0.0065631 btc has been recognized by our system and is now confirming. Once the required amount of confirmations is reached, your order will be sent to the vendor for further processing. Reaching the required amount of confirmations can take several minutes up to several hours depending on the transaction fee you paid. Thank you for your patience.”The transfer definitely went through but I’m getting worred now to be honest after catching up on a few reports about Dark0de Reborn.
Has anyone had this happen to them and then eventually had the order show up as paid or am I fucked and if so HOW?
One user has been waiting almost 24 hours for his deposit to appear in his account, with many people confirming the significant delays on deposits and withdrawals on Dark0de Market in the post.
Another user reported that he had to wait 40 hours for his Monero withdrawal to appear in his wallet, and he also mentioned the hidden costs that Dark0de Market levies on vendors, which forces customers to spend roughly 8% in fees (when the darknet markets average is around 4%).
Many more users have shared their own experiences with Dark0de Market delayed withdrawal times, noting out that Monero has very low transaction fees and virtually no block confirmation waiting times.
Dark0de Response
While most darknet market administrators have responded professionally to accusations of theft, Dark0de Market admin appear to have taken a different approach in response to the numerous complaints about withdrawal and deposit times (as well as banning vendors and stealing their funds for no reason), and simply decided to post laughing emojis without responding to the accusations.
Summary
With both deposits and withdrawals process times approaching 48 hours in some cases and the familiar excuses of a “DDoS attack” responsible for the delays, vendors who are banned for no reason while their funds are stolen, and nonresponsive support and market admin, it appears that Dark0de Market is preparing for a planned exit scam.
We strongly advise consumers to withdraw their monies and investigate alternative top darknet markets that process deposits and withdrawals quickly.
