Hi there,
I’m new but I’ve already made few transactions, and even went into mediation.
It is still very unclear to me one aspect of Bisq: if you wanna buy BTC with a scammer who - even after mediation and arbitrator - doesn’t want to release it and you already payed your fiat compensation what happens?
He basically keeps both his BTC and your FIAT, right?
Thank you all in advance for your replies
You can read about the arbitration process in this wiki article Arbitration - Bisq Wiki
As soon as the trade has started the seller can not move the coins anymore, because they will be deposited in a multisignature address.
If the trade is not resolved during the mediation phase then the trade can go to arbitration after a time delay.
Once the trade is taken by the taker (you), the maker can’t cancel it. So it would go into mediation where you could prove that you paid the correct account.
The situation you described is easier than to be a BTC seller (and receiving EUR for example). Then you risk being sent money from a hijacked account so you would release your bitcoins to the buyer since you’d have all the money on your account. But because the real owner of that hijacked account asks for charback, you’d chargebacked.
One solution to this is to sell bigger amounts of bitcoin than is the limit for unsigned accounts. (Therefore interacting only with signed accounts)
Trading and deposit funds are into a 2of2 multisig, so if you can prove you’ve made the payment, the mediator will suggest a payout in your favour (receiving the trade funds, your deposit and a part of seller’s security deposit.
If seller doesn’t accept the mediation suggestion, will probably lose all the funds at arbitration. Arbitration can start after 20 days since the start of the trade, by rejecting the mediator’s suggestion (you can do so even after having accepted it previously). Rejecting mediator suggestion triggers the delayed payout transaction, which spends all the funds to the DAO address.
https://bisq.wiki/Dispute_resolution
Responding to your thread’s title, you can’t avoid scammers. There is always risk. All platforms have risk, no matter what they say to make you feel better. Know the payment method and Bisq as best as possible to reduce the risk and keep the limits into amounts you feel comfortable with if something happens.