Comment by shredfvz

It's not risky in and of itself. It's risky because scammers are getting _really_ good at scamming people on localbitcoins. I've seen stories of criminals printing up fake receipts from Chase. I've also seen stories of con artists who will trick a completely unrelated third party into sending cash to your localbitcoin's bank account, then telling you "cash sent", meanwhile the rightful owner of the cash has no idea their money is being used for these purposes and will inevitably open up a fraud suit with their bank. And then there's people paying with counterfeit bills. Not exactly a walk in the park. Then again, I guess this is all to the buyer's advantage, but this higher risk is reflected in higher prices than what you'll find on vetted online exchanges.