I recently had a very dissatisfying experience while using bisq and
the arbitration process. Some of it was already discussed here
in the forums. After further conversation with @cbeams he asked me to start
a new thread about the dispute/trade to clarify all details of the process.
So here is what went down in my trade:
I wanted to sell my BTC for Fiat because I needed fiat quite urgently
and bisq seemed to be the easiest solution for the amount I wanted to exchange
so I started a trade with somebody from the “Sell BTC” Tab.
After initiation everything went as usual.
Right the next day when I woke up, I saw a dispute open with this message by the arbitrator:
So I was given the impression that the arbitrator started the dispute to inform the
traders of the delay we are about to experience due to mempool congestion and since
this was how he introduced the dispute to me I didn’t even think that the other
trader did in fact start the dispute.
I thought this was some informatory dispute by the arbitrator so the people who
are in a current trade won’t panic.
Since I needed fiat urgently I immediately decided to cancel the trade, because
this option was given to traders in the information link that my arbitrator shared with me.
So I figured this would be done and the trade will be cancelled, because that was
what the arbitrator suggested himself indirectly after all, by sending me the link to ManfredKerrers post.
I then went out and got my fiat otherwise because I was sure the trade is gonna
be cancelled as the arbitrator himself gave me the option.
After 24h I still haven’t heard anything from him and I was still under the impression that dispute
was started by the arbirtor for information reasons, since the arbitrator didn’t tell me anything
about issues that my trading partner was experiencing.
After more than 24h my arbitrator finally wrote back. Much to my regret his response
looked to me like one-liners that were just posted to keep me quiet and postpone
any further action. I felt there was a complete lack of concern or empathy for my situation
and I was just fed one-liners that I would expect from shitty/shady companies
with not much interest for their customer’s experience.
And until this point still NO MENTIONING why the dispute was started. I was still
under the impression it was an informatory dispute started by the arbitrator(after 32h+)
Instead of giving me any information about the situation or the reason for the dispute I was
still under already said impression. And now I only get one-liners without any valueable
content or empathy just to keep me waiting and in the dark.
The lack of transparency in the arbitrators messaging is unacceptable.
The arbitrators are in charge of a big chunk of money and they should at least
have fundamental skills of customer support(i know bisq is not a company per se, but
given that the users trust the arbitrators with a lot of money, the skill of good customer support
are mandatory in my opionion, if you want your users to feel safe using bisq)
In my case my trade was for an amount of money that I have to work for close to 2 months
to earn. When I get treated like this, when somebody is in charge of 2 months worth of my salary,
I will make sure that this person will never ever get my business or my money
as he has a complete lack of sympathy for my situation and doesn’t think it’s necessaryy
to inform me about the process that is taking place(was still under the impression it was
an informatory dispute)
So after 2 days, close to 48h, is the first time the arbitrator thought it was necessary to inform me
about the reason for the dispute. This is just anacceptable, to keep the traders in the dark like that.
I don’t even understand why there wouldn’t be a chat between all 3 parties at once and why the arbitrator
communicates seperately with every trader, this is just cause for concern about the transparency of the trade
and also invokes more stress on the trader especially when messages from the arbitrator take more than 24h.
So I got only clcarification of the whole situation from the arbitrator after he has made
all his decisions and left me in the dark during the whole process.
Calling his behaviour a “slight mistake” is just adding insult to the injury as his beginning
of this dispute was the ONLY reason I went out to get my fiat from other sources because like I said
I needed fiat urgently and was given the impression I can cancel the trade.
This mistake by the arbitrator caused me to lose a lot of money now and sell more BTC than I ever intended to do.
Calling it like this and stil not showing any empathy but just a lack of concern about my situation
and how this could’ve happened is just very unprofessional beeing in the position as the arbitrator
is, as he is at that point in charge of 2 months worth of my salary. Now it just feels like he thinks
is necessary to talk down on me while he never thought it necessary to inform me about the reason for the
dispute after he already made his decision.
I also was neven even given the chance to challenge his decision and bring this dispute maybe to another arbitrator.
As it is written in the whitepaper:
I feel very mistreated and think the arbitrator did a very poor job on his behalf which
left me with a severe financial loss and loss of BTC that I wouldn’t have traded
elsewhere, if there would’ve been more transparency and professionalism on the side
of the arbitrator.
While I understand bisq is not company and arbitrators only get payed and amount
from the tranasaction fees, the people behind the bisq project should consider that
people trade with highly valuable assets/currencies on bisq. If you want to have users
at all trading this high-value assets/currencies, a concern for happy users and
and fundamental skills of customer supprt are mandatory, otherwise I don’t
see a reason why I should trust any of the preject’s members if there is no
concern for satisfied users.