OP here - a bit more info on this. Got a few more emails from Venmo and in addition to / related to my “frozen” account, multiple Bisq-related Venmo sales I conducted were apparently “charged back” to my account long after the transaction completed. Typical / common scam, not unique to Venmo at all. But it just drives home the point that Venmo / Paypal / probably other fiat-based payment methods are simply too risky to rely on for use like this. I’m out $1200, AND I’m out the BTC I sold. What a pain in the ass.
It’s not Bisq’s fault of course, it’s the weakness of the payment methods. A seller using Venmo etc. has zero protection / assurance that the buyer won’t simply do a chargeback and get the fiat transaction reversed, leaving the seller screwed out of the coin they sold.
I’m worried now that other Bisq sales I’ve done using Zelle and Cashapp methods will also be charged back to me, seems like it’s just a matter of time.
Such a bummer. Fiat transactions are one of the biggest draws to using Bisq, but they’re inherently the weakest link in the whole system and effectively render the experience useless and financially harmful to the seller. At this point I think I’m done using Bisq for anything but crypto-to-crypto transactions, which are protected by immutable multisig contracts and aren’t reversible once completed. If I need fiat, I’m just going to stick to using a full traditional exchange. 