Arbitrator not responding to messages at all (urgent!)

@ManfredKarrer i sent you a PM on here and the description of the dispute/bug, im not sure if you are able to receive PM’s on here since i just registered. Its been very hard to communicate to arbitrator as i have received NO replies and messages show “Message arrived at receiver” with 1 tick for more than a day. It feels like im talking to myself.

This dispute is due to a bug that i have found and am not sure what the status of the payment process is right now, because its grayed out.
Can you please check your PM urgently and tell me if you received my message?

I’m also waiting forover 24h for a response now from my arbitrator. I’m sorry, but not being able to respond in 24h timeframe doesn’t put a good light on the project in the current day and age.

The arbitrator is either totally ignoring us from the start, or the “Message arrived at receiver” tick is not working as expected. If its the former, the arbitrator shouldn’t be an arbitrator. its been 2 days now. Who knows what the BTC Seller is thinking on the other side of this dispute with no replies or any messages being relayed.

I had two open technical disputes caused by the recent congestion issues. In both cases I sold BTC for FIAT. Both disputes resulted in the buyer depositing FIAT into my bank and I have confirmed this to the arbitrator. The two cases were concerningly different for a while:

Case 1: I confirm payment to the arbitrator and within 5 minutes the ticket is closed and BTC is moved correctly.

Case 2: I confirm payment to the arbitrator and it takes 20h for a response and the ticket being closed.

During this time, I felt the same stress of the unknown as the traders above. I think this is a user experience issue, so flagging it to @christoph

Users being left hanging in doubt is less than optimal. I feel the early users of this system will be very forgiving and understanding of the pressure that the arbitrators and devs are under in these early days, but the software’s user interface needs to inform of the potential range in delay.

Maybe an arbitrator had to rush off for a personal emergency? Maybe they were knocked down by a car? Is there a systemic backup, eg. 3 arbitrators covering each other on each ticket for 24h / day coverage?

I feel the user interface of the software needs to re-assure the trader regarding these (and worse) kinds of thoughts . Not everybody is going to read the white paper and be enthused about decentralised management and support systems!

But the arbitrator himself is not following the protocol as suggested in the “Don’t panic”-Thread by ManfredKerrer. What am I supposed to make of it besides losing all trust in the project/team if the team-members themselves don’t follow their own instructions/protocol and are just ignoring their users?

This is unacceptable and I will definitely never use this software again afer this incident and make sure none of my friends will do so as well.

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Yep - it would appear that something has gone wrong for your specific case. Unfortunately this is difficult, since once trust is broken it is near impossible to repair. This happened to so many people when Mt Gox failed a few years ago.

Ironically, this is the kind of thing that Bisq is trying to prevent by decentralising and not having a central point of trust.

I don’t really know what to say to you @BTCGambler , I am just a trader as yourself and have no involvement in dev or management. I feel for you and the stress you are under right now. What I can suggest is that you read the overarching strategy of the Bisq project here: https://github.com/bisq-network/docs/blob/master/dao/phase-zero.adoc

Sometimes good things (still) happen on the internet and maybe a bit of time is going to resolve this problem you are experiencing.

Hi @citkane, @BTCGambler, I’m just catching up with this thread now. Please share the Bisq trade IDs you’re having trouble with so that myself and other arbitrators can check to see who is responsible for them.

We’ve had a much higher volume of arbitration issues over the last week than usual, and we’ve been doing our best to work through them all in a timely fashion. My apologies in advance if somehow one of yours has been neglected. We’ll sort it all out in any case. Thanks.

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Thanks @cbeams , all my support issues have been resolved and I have been keeping @christoph advised of user experience issues along the way: UX observations while trading

I hope that you can help get @BTCGambler 's problems resolved.

Dear users of Bisq,

There is presently many disputes going on in parallell, mostly due to the filling up of the mempool. Some of the disputes are very complicated and need considerable effort to arbitrate correctly. It is of utmost importance that arbitration is done correctly. Arbitration simply will not be fast. One reason is that very often one of the traders responds with considerable delay. The arbitrators themselves are not at all full-time arbitrators but do many other things. I think the correct comparison is with arbitration in real life which takes months. And artibitrators are also humans who at times get sick etc.

Keo

you have a PM

@cbeams since i am a new user on this forum, are you able to receive my PM’s here? Please let me know so i can give you trade ID and arbitrator address.

@keo I am well aware that arbitration is not a full time job.
I am one of those early users of this system as @citkane mentioned, and i am very forgiving and know very well that arbitration is not a full time job and that things can happen to the arbitrators that are out of their control.
However, that being said - i think the arbitrator should reply at least once in the beginning and just say “ok i received your message, i will look into it and theres no need to worry. I will inform the other trader of so and so so that he doesnt worry either.” Its a matter of communication, a few said words that will make the traders feel at ease when trading IF something goes wrong, such as a bug for example.

Most people using bisq are moving a LOT of money around, and it tends to cause a LOT of stress when things go a little wrong.

My issue as it stands has still not been resolved, and am still worried if the trader on the other side actually knows why i opened a dispute.

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I can answer you question about the PMs as a new user. Yes, you can send PMs as a new user, that setting has been set in the forum that even the most basic user can send a PM.

As for the arbitration part, hopefully there wasn’t some error with messages getting lost, but they will be sorted out anyway, sooner or later with the help of this support forum.

Either way, there is nothing to worry about. Your funds are safe in a multisig and everything should be fine if you followed the protocol. :slight_smile:

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Issue resolved! Bug has been reported and will be fixed. thanks guys!

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Please consider Bisq is not a company and arbitrators don’t get a salary compensating their real effort.
Customer care support at profit orientated centralized exchanges or other platforms can take weeks.I waited for instance 3 weeks for a AirBnB case resolved (very unsatisfying).
So guys please have a bit patience.

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