QFT willwamm. I've seen a lot of people talking about "Stop the FE madness!". I wholeheartedly agree. I don't want to insult anyone, my experience with SR heroin users has been unbelievably better than I expected after my experience with heroin users in real life. Though i'm hesitant to say this because I don't want to sound negative, I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say most of us surely agree that as a group heroin vendors and heroin addicts are less trustworthy than the average person. (I'm tryign to be gentle here - That is hugely understated, but I'm speaking timidly because I don't want to start a debate on this unrelated issue) Don't get me wrong - I trust my customers you are all wonderful and I have been scammed at most 3 times out of 400 orders, thank you all for being so honest. I'm not bad mouthing anyone, just stating that heroin is a powerful drug that erodes the morals of many people. Most heroin vendors use their products and are addicts and are therefore in the same category so until they prove otherwise they should not be trusted. I dont want to turn this in to a shameless self promotion but this natural and valid vendor distrust is the reason I take customer trust so incredebly seriously - heroin vendors as a group are not trustworthy and so it I make an important point to try and differentiate myself in that way. As a vendor I see FE from the other side. There are a few reasons a vendor might ask for FE. The first one is to avoid being scammed. In reality however you dont need FE to prevent from being scammed, tracking and a good rep will cause the vendor to be victorious in the event of a disupte (though I wouldn't know as I've never had one). To me this leaves only two reasons a vendor might require FE: To take away the customer's power to dispute, or he is short on money. If the vendor wants you to give up your power to dispute that should be a huge red flag, an instant warning that they have something to be afraid of. Either their product doesn't stand on it's own, they can't deliver, or for some other reason are worried you won't pay. Whatever that reason is it's certainly a vendor quality issue not a purchase issue and thus paying ahead of time is a very poor idea. For this reason alone I absolutely refuse to deal with any vendor who requires FE. I suppose if the vendor's reputation is stellar you might choose to, but even then - vendors have been known to start requiring FE before exiting the scene, so probably still a bad choice. Off the top of my head the only vendor I would FE for without hesitation is ivory (I have no relation to ivory except as a customer, and he doesn't know which customer I am so I get nothing for saying this) The final reason a vendor might ask for FE is he's short on cash. Now this is something I can understand, it's a tough business and resupply takes time. That can happen to anyone, particuarly if you live hand to mouth as a drug dealer. But even though it's undertsandable, between the lesser moral code of heroin vendors, addicts, the risk of non delivery due to their financial problems and the simple fact that you have no recourse due to the anonymity SR provides them, even if I were sure the vendor had only the purest intent FE'ing because they need the money is simply a poor decision which you will regret far too often. Even in the event that everything goes perfectly smoothly FE is still a bad idea for a very simple reason: Escrow is designed to keep people honest so that every honest transaction becomes a win/win. Bypassing escrow and paying first changes the playing field: It may be win/win, but it may be win/lose (customer looses). Why on earth does anybody consider that acceptable? It's not just about the customer losing. There's a saying: You can kill a cow once or you can milk it forever. As a vendor one bad transaction and the customer is gone forever. Why on earth would anybody do that? To make 100% profit on a single order, instead of 20% profit on 10 orders? Maybe I'm missing something, but it is in both the cutsomers AND the vendor's best interest that transactions are win/win, and for that reason nobody should ever finalize early. So both as a vendor putting his money where his mouth is (I have not required a single FE - even from customers with 0 purchases), and a buyer, I wholeheartedly recommend refusal to FE under all circumstances. If anybody disagrees and can credible argument why FE is in anybody's best interest please post it here, I open minded and willing to admit if I am wrong and I (and probably many others) would love to hear an opposing viewpoint.