Escrow and disputes

Escrow runs the way a buyer expects. You fund an order, the vendor ships, you confirm receipt, and the coin releases. If you never confirm, the order auto-finalises after a few days so a vendor is not left waiting on a buyer who wandered off. Disputes route through moderators who read PGP-signed evidence from both sides before deciding.

New vendors post a bond and run escrow-only for a probation window before they earn the right to ask for finalise-early. That probation is a real filter. A scammer has to sink a bond and survive a stretch of fully-escrowed orders before the mechanism they need for a clean exit even unlocks, which makes the market a poor venue for the smash-and-grab.

The one move that gives up all of this is finalising early on a vendor who has not earned your trust. The atlas position is blunt: do not finalise before the package is in your hands, whatever the reason offered.