How to Buy a FiveM Server Without Getting Scammed

Buying an established FiveM server means skipping the hardest part of running one: the first six months with an empty lobby. It also means wiring a serious amount of money to someone you met on the internet.

Here is how to do it without losing it.

Verify the player count yourself

The number in the listing is a claim, not a fact.

• Ask for the server's cfx.re listing and check it live, at peak and off-peak.
• Ask for txAdmin player-count graphs covering at least 90 days. One screenshot of a good night is meaningless; you want the trend.
• Watch for a graph that is healthy until roughly the month the listing went up, then declines. That is often why it went up for sale.

A server with 40 stable players is worth more than one that peaked at 200 and now sits at 15.

Verify the revenue

If the seller claims monthly income, ask for:

• Tebex or payment-processor screenshots covering at least six months, showing the dashboard chrome, not a cropped number.
• A breakdown of what buyers actually get — is the revenue from cosmetics, or from selling in-game advantage that could get the server shut down?
• Recurring versus one-off. A community living off a handful of whales is fragile.

Revenue that cannot be evidenced should be valued at zero when you decide your price.

Ask what you are actually buying

"The server" can mean very different bundles. Get an explicit list:

• The Discord, with full ownership transfer — not "I'll add you as admin".
• The cfx.re keymaster account and server keys.
• All custom scripts, and critically, the rights to them.
• The database — players, characters, vehicles, property.
• Domain, website, branding assets.
• Any paid resources, plus whether their licences are legally transferable. Many are not.

That last point catches people out. If half the server's scripts are licensed to the seller personally, you may be buying a server you cannot legally run.

Check the legal and reputational baggage

• Has it ever been hit with a cfx.re ban or takedown? Ask directly and get it in writing.
• Are any scripts leaked or cracked? Inheriting that inherits the risk.
• Search the community name plus "drama", "scam", "leak". Fifteen minutes here saves a lot.

The staff problem nobody mentions

Communities run on their moderators. When ownership changes, staff often leave — sometimes taking a chunk of the playerbase to a competing server.

Ask to speak to the current staff team before you buy. Find out who is planning to stay. A server whose entire mod team quits on day one is a much smaller purchase than the listing suggested.

Never pay directly

This is the part that matters most.

A direct PayPal transfer to a stranger for a $3,000 server has no protection. Friends-and-family transfers have none at all, and that is exactly what a scammer will ask for.

On ModForge, server sales are escrowed. Your payment is held by the platform, not handed to the seller, while the ownership transfer actually happens. A private handover chat opens so credentials and assets can be exchanged, and the seller's payout is held for 15 days after the sale to cover the transfer window. If the transfer does not happen, there is a dispute process and a human reviewing it.

The 25% platform fee on server sales exists to fund exactly that: escrow, moderation and dispute handling on high-value transactions.

A sane transfer order

1. Agree the full asset list in writing, in the chat.
2. Fund escrow.
3. Seller transfers the Discord and keymaster first — the things that prove control.
4. Database and scripts.
5. Domain and branding.
6. You verify everything works.
7. Funds release.

Never approve the release because the seller says the transfer is "basically done". Approve when you have logged into everything yourself.

Red flags

• Refuses escrow, insists on direct payment.
• Pushes urgency: "another buyer is waiting".
• Only cropped screenshots, never a live look.
• Cannot explain why they are selling.
• Wants friends-and-family or untraceable crypto.

Any single one is enough to walk away. A legitimate seller of a real community has no reason to object to escrow.