Payment received, Incorrect BIC, What do?

Hey,

I’m in the middle of my first trade on Bisq (w00t!), I’ve received my payment in EUR for the correct amount (well, slightly over actually, they rounded up!), it was SEPA, the IBAN/name/reference of the sender of the EUR are all correct, however the BIC is different. I’m happy enough though having received the EUR and presumably the BTC is still in multisig escrow waiting for me to confirm payment received.

Can I safely confirm payment received even if the BIC is completely incorrect? (It’s not just 1 digit/letter off, it’s an entirely different BIC, like I say the name and IBAN are correct, it’s just the BIC)

Or if not, what should I do?

Thanks and sorry if this or something similar has been asked before, I did search the forum for “incorrect bank details” and didn’t find anything.

I found these two previous posts just now after trying some different searches:

Start payment or not - In this one, it seems the user has taken up an offer to buy some coins using SEPA and has noticed the BIC seems incorrect having checked what to expect using an IBAN calculator. It’s suggested to open a dispute, but this is prior to any exchange of value, is my interpretation.

Cash Deposit, details do not match - In this one the user has already been paid in fiat but the user seems to only be able to confirm the reference. Manfred suggests it’s not such a big deal so long as the IBAN and the name are correct.

So the second case might be applicable to my case, in that I’ve received payment and the IBAN and name are correct (and reference), but the BIC is completely different.

Hopefully someone here can 100% confirm the appropriate action for me to take though?

You can always open a dispute with cmd+o to be sure. Perhaps arbitrator will advise you what to do in future. When you are in doubt, feel free to open a dispute, there are no risks or costs in doing so.

Nice one, thanks, have done :slight_smile:

Ah this is specifically mentioned here:

https://bisq.network/blog/privacy-in-bitsquare#privacy-in-fiat-trades

It seems to imply that it’s not a good idea to release bitcoin to a peer whose details were wrong since they might be trying to scam (last paragraph) Will have to see what happens in dispute.

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The arbitrator has responded and relayed to me what the counter-party has said to explain about their error; apparently their bank used to be a different bank (it was acquired or merged or something), so there are a couple of BIC’s associated with this bank and the wrong one was used (they used an internet search to determine their BIC, rather than referring to their actual bank’s documentation of their accounts, presumably).

The counter-party is from a different country to me and I have no idea about any of the banks they have over there (or even in my own country really). I’m also very ignorant about the kinds of scams that may or may not be possible (perhaps there have been instances of banks agreeing to reverse SEPA payments, or maybe this is impossible).

This kind of case seems to pose a bit of a moral dilemma. It seems very likely to have been a genuine mistake.

I’ve just spent a bit of time having a cursory look to see if there have been any people claiming their SEPA credit transfers have been reversed, and it seems it’s not unheard of. I get the impression that it depends on your bank’s policies and whether they will take your money without asking you if a sender claims fraud.

So on the one hand, it would seem the nice/good/proper thing to do, in human terms, would be to confirm receipt of payment so that the trade can be closed and everybody can carry on with other things.

On the other hand, a mistake has been made by the counter-party in using the system. A mistake that seems to bring into question the legitimacy of the contract, which I suspect may carry some kind of value in legal terms (e.g. if there was a fraud/reversal claim by the buyer). Again, it seems unlikely that my bank would let this happen, but I can’t say I feel certain that the effect here is negligible/insignificant.

It seems the safest thing to do is to keep the BTC if this is possible, but this would also feel pretty terrible, like you’ve just stolen somebody’s money. Also arguably bad for the community if newbies can make a mistake like this and end up losing such a sum of money, and so probably get scared away. On the other hand, many argue that mistakes in using this technology should be punished and this is the only way people will learn. And of course any scam attempts/signs should be defended against and punished as heavily as possible, right?

So yeah basically I feel really conflicted in this situation tbh. Obviously I also have a heavy bias due to the 100% profit opportunity for the value of the trade.

Also, in terms of anonymity/privacy, once you’re in a trade with somebody, you have the name of their account, and you might be able to come to this support forum and maybe other places and identify your counter-party. I’m sure it would be pretty easy for my counter-party to do this right now. So that’s another consideration.

Decentralization sure ain’t easy!

First of all, you can’t keep your BTC and get fiat, if that is what you meant by 100% profit. Other trader will provide proof of payment to the arbitrator and he will send your BTC to the other trader and your security deposit as well for not following the protocol.

The decision is up to an arbitrator on what will happen now, but he will talk to both of you to make sure that he makes a fair decision, where hopefully both of you agree.

This mistake seems like the bank’s fault, not users and I personally don’t feel like he should be punished, but that is up to an arbitrator.
Chargeback risk is very low, as far as I know in SEPA transfers and it is hard to do.

As for the legal binding of a Bisq contract, I am not sure that would count in court. You never really sign anything, but I guess this would depend on the country.

For future reference, I don’t think Bisq users should be punished for every little mistake. Bisq is still quite new software and mistakes happen often while scams happen very rarely, if ever in Bisq. Users can learn very well by a simple warning. We all have a lot to learn here.

:+1:
Especially because you already don’t “have” your BTC anymore, @tomatopeel.
You’ve signed a multisig transaction with the buyer and arbitrator, so those 2 together will be able to get the buyer his funds without you doing anything.
This whole process is very secure, and doesn’t require trust (except maybe in the arbitrators).
Bisq is very well done!

Does Bisq actually have a chat-like kind of feature built in or what? Didn’t know about that!

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Yes, when the dispute gets open you can send and receive messages from your arbitrator. But not to the other trader.

@alexej996 Thanks for clearing this up, I was a bit confused since the arbitrator said that the decision was with me. I thought perhaps the alternative to accepting that the fiat payment was made was to reject that the fiat payment has been made and therefore claim the BTC.

The arbitrator has also clarified in a reply that the alternative would be to pay the fiat back to the buyer and receive the BTC. So this makes the decision much easier.

Very interesting, thanks for the insight! :slight_smile: