❓ Before you trade

Selling crypto to someone you don't know: what to check before you confirm the payment

The seller's risk is not that the buyer won't pay. It is that the buyer pays with money that comes back, comes from someone else, or never arrived. Five checks, in order.

When you sell crypto, your transfer is final and theirs may not be. Every seller-side loss comes from confirming a payment that was not what it looked like: a screenshot instead of a balance, a payment from a third party, a reversible method, a different amount. Escrow makes the order safe; this list makes the confirmation safe.

Before you confirm, in this order

  1. 1Open your own bank or wallet app. Not a screenshot, not an email, not a "pending" notice. The money is there or it is not.
  2. 2Check the amount. On iEscrow each trade has an exact, unique amount; a different figure is a different payment, or a scam. See The buyer overpaid and wants the difference back.
  3. 3Check the name. The sender must be the person you are trading with. A payment from another name is not confirmed, ever. See The money came from a different name than the buyer.
  4. 4Check the method. If it is a method the payer can reverse on their own (PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Skrill, Neteller), the money is not yours yet, whatever the balance says. iEscrow does not offer those methods for this reason.
  5. 5Only then confirm. If any of the four fails, do not confirm and open a dispute: the crypto stays in escrow and an arbiter decides with your evidence.

How the trade protects you while you check

  • Your crypto left your balance when the trade was accepted and sits in escrow. Nothing you do in the chat moves it; only your confirmation or an arbiter does.
  • The buyer cannot cancel the trade after accepting, so "cancel and we redo it" is not available to them.
  • You have 30 minutes from the buyer’s declaration to confirm. If you do not, the trade escalates to a dispute by itself; it does not release.
  • If you connected your receiving account (read-only, where open banking exists), the platform sees the credit in the bank and you do not have to.
The buyer in a hurry is the only buyer who benefits from your hurry. Take the 30 minutes.
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