Case Study: Tradeblock Achieves Scam-Free Sneaker Trading with Stream

How Tradeblock Combats Scams and Builds a High-Trust Marketplace

Tradeblock, a sneaker trading marketplace, needed a way to let users negotiate trades and share details without opening the door to scams, spam, or platform bypass attempts. The team initially hesitated to add chat, but user demand made it essential for completing trades and building trust in a peer-to-peer environment. Tradeblock used Stream’s Chat API and AI-powered moderation to support secure conversations.

With Stream, Tradeblock launched rich in-app messaging and then added automated moderation using keyword rules and AI to detect phishing, spam, and evasive scam behavior. The result was a virtually scam-free chat experience: hundreds of scam messages per day were reduced to effectively zero, phishing attempts dropped to near zero, and Tradeblock avoided hiring a full-time trust and safety team.

Tradeblock

Mbiyimoh Ghogomu

Co-Founder and CEO