I have had a trade on 2nd October. Buyer didn’t pay, mediator made a proposal. I accepted the offer of the mediator, obviously the buyer did not respond or did not accept (you cannot see the status) The mediator closed the ticket (which should be open I believe). Now the Bitcoins are locked and I cannot open an arbitration.
I could not find in the documentation how the process continues as this is still referring to the old methodology of arbitration only (no mediator).
You can accept the mediation, but there is also a button to reject mediation and ask for arbitration. Another five business (worst case) days to go :).
I don’t have an answer, but I’m sure interested in what happens. I heard in the future there might be a bond of 100% of the value that you are selling (e.g., if you sell $100, you need another $100 bond that the mediator/arbitrator could theoretically take if voted that way).
There will always be people who start a transaction that is small for their budget, then they get distracted with life or have a technical problem, and don’t complete the transaction. Ideally if the buyer doesn’t respond, there should be a way to unlock everything.
Received a response from the arbitrator. He is waiting a response from the buyer. Fair to me.
To me, it looks like the process is running smoothly. My only big concern is timing. This was a small deal of 0,01 BTC involved. In total 0,015 has been locked for now at least 12 days. This kills liquidity of the market and the traders.
It also increases the risks of the trader. In these 12 days we have seen some significant price moves (10.500 to 7.600 now back to 8.300). All this time there is no certainty about your real exposure.
Trading, mediation and arbitration windows should be comparable with LocalBitcoins.