Dream Market Darknet Marketplace: First Signs of a Scam?

About a week ago, on September 13, 2017, the Dream Market marketplace went offline for several hours without any explanation from the administrators. Considering what happened this summer to other popular underground sites, Hansa and AlphaBay, Dream Market is currently the largest marketplace on the darknet, where most users from the closed sites have migrated.

When the site stopped responding, users immediately began speculating about another law enforcement operation. Others suggested that the Dream Market operators might have decided to disappear with users’ funds, pulling off what’s known as an exit scam.

Although Dream Market eventually resumed normal operations, some users are now complaining on the official forum and subreddit that their wallets have suddenly been emptied. The issue is that, like other darknet marketplaces, Dream Market requires buyers to first transfer cryptocurrency to their Dream Market account. Only after all checks are completed does the money get released to the seller’s wallet.

The site’s operators reported that the downtime and the disappearance of user funds were due to a hard drive failure. The administration claims that not all users were affected and that they are currently working to recover the lost data. They have promised to return the missing funds, but their assurances don’t sound very convincing.

Doesn’t this sound familiar?