Yea, I think I may live in a different world. I live on a small island in a smallish town. I routinely do thousands of dollars in business at a time either in cash because I have a relationship with that person or by check with a local bank.

Your reputation is worth more than anything else in a small community. If you start ripping people off its known very very quickly and scammers end up moving away, or just get well known enough that nobody sane does business with them. Eventually bad enough apples get encouraged by the local brutha's to stop being a problem or have their limbs broken.