When escrow fees are refunded

Establishing fee refund and contact rules

Until either side shares contact info, the fee payer may request a refund of the $1.00 site share of the establishing fee (not the $0.10 owner share already credited). Admins review chat history. If contact was already shared, we cannot refund.

Accept a match only if you are available now. If you accept while unavailable and the deal fails because of that, your account can be permanently blocked. If we prove the other side broke the rules or was unavailable, the buyer's $1.00 site share may still be refundable after the contract started, and that other account can be permanently blocked.

Do not share contact details until you can complete the contract successfully - early contact removes the refund path and raises the risk of permanent blocks when rules are broken. Details: escrow establishing fee.

While the contract is open

Outgoing and incoming amounts on Profile → Escrows stay held. Incoming escrow cannot be used to place buy orders or open new contracts - only your wallet balance can.

Contract completes successfully

• Deal escrow is released to the seller (minus any seller-paid transaction fee).
• Establishing fee is consumed (not refunded).
• Market-owner shares ($0.10 establishing + 0.1% transaction) are credited.

Contract ends with the seller at fault

• Buyer deal hold is refunded to the buyer.
• Establishing fee is consumed (not refunded to the payer).
• Market-owner establishing share may still be credited.

Contract ends without seller fault (including buyer-side issues)

• Establishing fee is refunded to whoever paid it.
• Deal escrow follows the end rules for that contract (typically returned to the buyer).
• Pause reason matters for fair fee returns - see why we ask about the pause reason.

Buy-order holds

An unmatched buy-order hold is refunded when you cancel that order. Once it matches into a contract, it becomes contract escrow and follows the rules above.

Related

For the math behind outgoing and incoming amounts, see Fee calculation. For sell-order messaging escrow, see how sell-order escrow works.