Disappointing arbitration & PageSigner

Support
1

I have just completed my first two Bisq trades. One (small transaction) went smoothly, the second went to a dispute as the BTC seller did not release the coins.

After 24 hours I opened a dispute and began the process of trying to provide evidence of the fiat being transferred. I encountered enormous problems with getting PageSigner to work having tried it on three different machines with one having a clean Chrome install (no other extensions to get in the way).

During all of this, the seller remained silent. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to provide proof and, of course, had my funds locked (much time was spent trying to get PageSigner to work. More time was spent sending video proofs of the fiat transfer and the PageSigner technical problems). The seller eventually replied to the arbitrator six days after the dispute was opened (seven days after the fiat was transferred). The seller acknowledged receipt and the arbitrator released the bitcoin.

I did expect, however, that the seller would not have had their deposit returned as they had wasted six days of my time and the arbitrator’s time.

I can certainly accept that there can be a little leeway here and there but faffing around for six days in the dark seemed excessive and it is pretty disappointing for my first Bisq experience.

I really want Bisq to improve and be very successful (I am sick of the centralised exchanges such as LBC due to the high level of fraud encountered). I would like to discuss how this can be achieved. I have two issues:

  1. The reliance on PageSigner:
    Okay, perhaps I am alone in not being able to get this to work - I really don’t know. The reason I do not know is that there is so little support or development of this app which Bisq is extremely reliant upon. I have searched many forums and information is hard to find (and usually archaic). I tried to get this to work in Chrome and in Brave and neither worked. However, these are essentially the same browser so I decided to try Firefox only to find that, although there is a link on the offical PageSigner website for the Firefox extension, it no longer exists! Additionally, the only support for PageSigner that someone could direct me to is an IRC channel - something which I haven’t used in over 20 years). How can the Bisq community possibly be relying on this application?

  2. The arbitration decision above:
    The seller has gotten off the hook here whilst leaving the buyer scrambling around for six days. For me, it seems extremely unjust. I know the arbitrators have a difficult job to do, however, in this case it was obvious that I had been genuine in the proofs that I had provided (as the seller had eventually acknowledged receipt) and the seller had wasted a considerable amount of my time, therefore, there should have been some sort of sanction to dissuade the seller from doing this again.

I look forward to some constructive discussion on this.

3 Likes
2

You had bad luck, I haven’t got to use pagesigner in a lot of trades, so I don’t even know how to use it or if it’s easy. All the trades I’ve been involved were easy, only a few bugs solved fast, and one buyer who put other info than trade ID on payment reason, and lost part of the deposit for this. If pagesigner doesn’t work, there are other methods to prove that you have sent the transfer, like videos.
I don’t understand that if there’s no dispute, as the other part was not responding, it took the arbitrator so much time to decide. And I also think that the protocol was not followed and you should get at least a part of the security deposit.

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It’s the responsibility of the BTC buyer to prove the payment was done so I agree with the arbitration outcome.

However if PageSigner is a poor tool, we should migrate to something better and document it better.

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PageSigner doesn’t seem to be actively developed tool.

A couple of months ago I once had a glance at it and I would have hesitated to use that extension with my online banking for security concerns.

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It is understandable, huey, that there is a burden of proof on the buyer to provide evidence.

However, once it became apparent that the buyer’s intensive attempts to prove the transaction was genuine were, in fact, completely genuine (by acknowledgment by the seller), and the seller had been negligent to the point of being non-existent for seven days, this should lead to a result in the favour of the party who acted with honesty and earnest. This this should be a cause for concern for the future of Bisq transactions.

Buyers will not be willing to accept having to strenuously prove themselves with a silent seller, wait, and lock up their funds for an entire week for a single transaction. This will not work.

As an addendum, huey, evidence was supplied by the buyer to the arbitrator of the successful transaction, however, this was not with the ‘approved’ PageSigner. Herein lies a bigger issue.

I have been denied a reasonable sum of money (and lost considerable time) and I am resigned to the fact that this cannot be fixed. It is now up the community to decide how such events will be handled in the future. For me and my first transactions on Bisq, I have lost a considerable amount of goodwill and faith in the system.

3 Likes
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got pagesigner to work on first attempt. Seems was bad luck from your side. I do see that some pages are not compatible wwith pagesigner