Era has been making it a lot harder for people to scam other individuals, but people are still getting scammed because they have let a "friend" borrow their item who didn't feel like returning it. One way to avoid this is by having a GP come watch your exchange. A lot of people have no patience so they'll either not wait on the GP or if there is not a GP on they'll do it anyway. Instead of GP having to go to a level to watch them do their trade it may be necessary to add a check box or something in the trade window when where the players agree that they are just lending the items.