When things go wrong

Most trades settle quietly. When one doesn't — the delivery was short, the wrong amount was sent, the counterparty went silent — you stand at a fork. From the trade's BuyerShipped state there are exactly three ways to close it: confirm, negotiate, or arbitrate. The mechanics of all three live in Trade mechanics. This page is about which one to choose, and the short version is: try negotiation first, almost always.

Try negotiation first

Negotiation on InVeil isn't an off-platform Telegram chat. It's a specific on-chain action: either side proposes a USDT amount to release to the Buyer (with the rest refunding to the Seller) and a note explaining why. The other side accepts, rejects, or rejects-and-counters. You can go back and forth as many times as it takes to converge.

The reason to start here is structural:

• Nobody forfeits anything. When a partial settlement closes, the Buyer's anti-fraud stake is returned in full. The only fee is the 0.2% commission on the agreed amount — identical to what a clean trade would have paid. Neither side gives up anything beyond what they negotiated to release.
• No reputation damage. A negotiated outcome counts as a successful trade — both parties' profile ticks +success and +volume. Arbitration is different: the winner's dispute-win count and the loser's dispute-loss count both increment, both are permanent, and both show on every future counterparty's view of your profile.
• You set the number. A panel ruling is winner-take-all. A negotiated settlement is whatever the two of you can live with. Most P2P disagreements are about amount, not integrity, and the right outcome usually sits somewhere in between — exactly what arbitration cannot deliver and negotiation can.
• It's fast. A partial-settlement round-trip is a few clicks. A committee dispute takes about three days end to end (48-hour evidence window plus 18-hour deliberation).

Even when you feel deeply wronged, the math usually still says negotiate. Settling at 70% of what you think you're owed — with your stake intact and no dispute counter on your profile — is in expectation often better than betting that same stake plus a dispute fee plus your reputation on whether a cold-reading panel agrees with you in 48 hours.

What arbitration actually costs you

Arbitration is a powerful tool — without it the system has no answer for a counterparty acting in bad faith — but it costs real things, and once it's open you can't back out. Before you click Dispute, understand what you're committing to:

• The dispute fee is forfeited if you lose. Opening a dispute costs 150 USDT per party. The winning side has their fee returned in full. The loser eats their 150 USDT — it flows to the protocol treasury.
• There is exactly one winner. The panel rules for one party and against the other. No 70/30 split, no partial credit for being mostly right. Even when the facts genuinely favor you, a panel reading cold in 48 hours can land the other way — and you eat the full loss.
• A unanimous loss forfeits your security stake too. If the panel votes unanimously against you, your security stake is forfeited on top of everything else. (A split ruling returns both stakes.)
• The result is on your profile forever. Both the dispute-win and dispute-loss counts are permanent, visible to every future counterparty. A dispute loss is not just a financial event — it follows the wallet.
• You can't take it back. The moment a dispute is open, escrow is frozen until the on-chain ruling settles. There is no off-platform "let's just settle this" exit — by design, because that exit is the one bad actors abuse.

When opening a dispute directly is the right move

A few situations don't fit "try negotiation first" because the other side isn't a viable negotiating partner. In these cases, opening a dispute without negotiating is the correct action:

• The counterparty has gone silent past the response window. Every order carries an 18-hour respond window the poster sets. If the other side hasn't acted by then and isn't responding to messages, you can move things forward without their cooperation.
• The other side is acting in clear bad faith. The Buyer marked shipped but you have no record of the delivery the rules describe. The Seller is pressing you to confirm receipt before the on-chain conditions are met. Either side is denying something a screenshot or transaction record plainly shows. These aren't situations a partial settlement can fix — they're situations where one side is trying to extract value through deception, and arbitration exists precisely so that's not viable.
• Negotiation has been exhausted. You've made two or three partial-settlement proposals at different amounts and the other side rejected each without a serious counter-offer. At that point you have evidence further negotiation won't converge, and arbitration is the only path forward.

For how a dispute actually moves through the system once it's open — the committee panel, the evidence and deliberation windows, the timeline — see Arbitration.