What happens when you open a dispute
Most trades finish without one. This is what the process actually looks like when a trade does not, so the first time you meet it is not while you are already annoyed and out of pocket.
6 minute read
Confirming is the irreversible step
Everything in the dispute process depends on one fact: your payment is held until you confirm delivery, and confirming releases it. Before you confirm, the money is recoverable. After you confirm, the order is closed and the seller has been paid.
So the single most useful habit is to confirm last, not first. Not when the seller says they have sent it, not when they ask you to confirm so they can start — after the gold, item, account or completed service is actually in your hands.
There is no time pressure on you. An order does not auto-release on a timer, so a seller telling you to hurry up and confirm is asking for something the system does not require.
Opening one, and what it does immediately
You open a dispute from the order page, before confirming. The escrow release is paused straight away and the order is flagged for review — the seller cannot be paid while it sits in that state.
That pause is the whole point. It converts a situation where you are chasing someone who already has your money into one where nobody has it and a third party is looking at the order.
Open it as soon as you believe something is wrong. There is no penalty for opening one that later resolves in the seller's favour, and waiting only makes the conversation harder to reconstruct.
What a reviewer can actually see
The order chat, the order itself, the listing as it was published, and for goods listings the stock evidence the seller attached when they created it. That is the evidence base, and it is why where you have a conversation matters more than people expect.
Anything agreed in the order chat is on the record. Anything agreed on Discord, in game, or over direct message is not — a reviewer cannot see it, cannot verify it, and cannot act on your account of it. A seller who wants to move the conversation elsewhere is, deliberately or not, moving it somewhere it cannot be used.
This is also why vague agreements cause disputes. "I'll sort you out" is not something anyone can adjudicate. "500M by 9pm tonight, GE world 302" is.
How they tend to resolve
Clear cases resolve quickly in whichever direction the evidence points. A seller who never delivered and never responded is not a difficult call, and neither is a buyer disputing after visibly receiving what they ordered.
The genuinely hard cases are partial delivery and changed terms — half the gold arrived, or the account was not quite what the listing described. Those turn on what was written down at the time, which is the practical argument for putting specifics in the chat before you order rather than after something goes wrong.
Disputes are not a way to change your mind. Buyer's remorse on a correctly delivered order is not a dispute, and treating it as one mainly wastes your own time.
The one thing to take away
Confirm only when you actually have what you bought, keep every specific in the order chat, and open a dispute the moment you think something is wrong. The pause is free; the confirmation is permanent.
Frequently asked questions
Can I undo confirming delivery?
No. Confirming releases the payment to the seller and closes the order. It is the one irreversible action in the process, which is why it should come after you have what you paid for rather than before.
Does opening a dispute cost me anything?
No. It pauses the escrow release and flags the order for review. There is no fee and no penalty if it turns out the seller was in the right.
What evidence actually counts in a dispute?
The order chat, the order record, the listing as published, and any stock evidence attached to it. Conversations held on Discord or in game cannot be seen or verified by a reviewer, so agreements made there carry no weight.
How long does a dispute take?
It depends on how clear the evidence is. A case where one side simply did not deliver is quick. Partial delivery and disagreements about what was promised take longer, because they turn on what was actually written down at the time.
The seller says to confirm first and they will deliver after. Should I?
No. That reverses the entire protection you are using. Confirming pays them, after which you are relying on goodwill — which is exactly the position escrow exists to keep you out of.