There are some simple steps you can follow to minimise risk, but it can never be 100% guaranteed. With that said, the only way you can get caught is if the other person does something stupid or admin trawl these forums looking for potential victims.
Like @
Stallion mentioned, knowing who is on the other end of your trade is very important. Try to find people who are active on this site as they will most likely know what they are doing. Also make sure that you and the other person, don't have a matching nickname with any of your
trackers. Remember that this is a public forum and is a dead giveaway for wary
tracker staff.
The other thing is to stay away from high level/risk
trackers. These
trackers ban a lot and have their own ways of weeding out traders, sellers and cheaters. If you absolutely need one of these
trackers you just have to be extra careful. For example, don't announce that you've sent an invite publicly, do this over
PM. As a matter of fact, it's best to keep all conversations you have away from public eyes. If you want to really be safe, don't ask for feedback until a couple of days after you have exchanged invites. Remember,
tracker staff can also use times of posts or feedback to identify traders so do as much as you can to throw them off.
All in all, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The positives of obtaining a great
tracker far outweigh the negatives which is a small possibility of being banned. If you are careful this percentage becomes so small that it is practically impossible. Just remember to enjoy yourself on
TI and don't let fear stop you from doing anything.
You can also read up on the following tutorials which go into greater depths of how to stay safe (some may mention giveaways or selling but they require practically the same safety measures as trading):
http://torrentinvites.org/f29/mainta...30/#post199022
http://torrentinvites.org/f29/read-i...195/#post33340
http://torrentinvites.org/f29/how-ma...1333/#post3293