Bitcointalk.org is definitely good place to buy bitcoin and start to learn just about anything you wanna know about cryptocurrencies. The forum is definitely rich of information with users actively sharing knowledge freely. But that's just the one side of the coin because the discussion board also have hundreds or maybe even thousands of wolves waiting for their careless prey.
Scammers lurks every corner and if they sees you having good amount of btc trying to make business as a newbie, that's when they strike. They could just send you a message containing a phishing link or simply offer their services if they notice your post and you'd be surprise what a scammer could do just to earn bitcoin these days. They are very tricky that the very cautious individuals in this forum still end up losing bitcoin since they knew once coin is sent, there is no way they can retrieve it.
"You go first and I'll send you the money through paypal." That's what most of them say when they do try to conduct a transaction. If for instance you send some bitcoin to them in exchange for paypal funds, you may never hear from them ever again except for the email sent by PayPal about the disputed funds.
You wouldn't believe a scammer actually convinced his victim to use teamviewer just so he can verify his victim has btc in his wallet before pulling off the scam. Check this thread.
One thing you can do though for you not to get scammed is to use an escrow. Ask who you are dealing with if both of you can agree to a 3rd party escrow. If he backs out, that should be a sign he could turn out to be a scammer. There are reputable users who regularly do escrows for bitcointalk.org users, check out the list of reputable escrows. The escrows will be useless if you transact with someone using PayPal so forget it.
