Frequently asked questions

FidesVault is an escrow and dispute-resolution platform for freelancers, marketplaces, and B2B transactions, and we are building an AI-powered contract scanner and deal checker. Funds are held in escrow and released against agreed milestones, with a neutral mediator ready to step in if a deal goes wrong.

From your dashboard, choose "New deal", set the amount, the deliverables, the settlement asset and network, the fee payer, and the terms, then invite your counterparty with a single-use link and a verification code.

Deals range from $400 to $50,000. The platform fee rate gets cheaper as the deal size grows.

Yes. The counterparty joins through the invite link and creates or signs into their account before the deal can proceed.

An AI-powered tool, currently in development, that analyzes contracts and deal documents, extracts key terms, obligations, and dates, flags risky or non-standard clauses, and checks deals against company policy and playbooks.

Not yet. It is in development and is labelled as such everywhere on this site. Escrow and dispute mediation are live today.

Every time. Content is re-checked whenever a document is uploaded, edited, or re-submitted, so reviews always reflect the latest version.

Clause comparison, redline suggestions, risk scoring, plain-language summaries, and audit-ready reports.

No. Human review stays in place for consequential decisions. The scanner assists reviewers; it does not replace them.

The buyer funds the deal against a unique per-deal address. Funding is independently verified at the required confirmation depth before the deal advances, so the seller can see the money is really there.

Deals can be funded and settled in digital assets (USDT, ETH, BNB, SOL, and TRX across Ethereum, BNB Chain, TRON, and Solana) or in traditional currency. The digital-asset mechanics are documented on our settlement page. Additional settlement options are on the roadmap.

Once the buyer approves delivery, or when the inspection window lapses without a dispute under the agreed terms, the payout is released to the seller.

Always send the exact asset on the exact network shown. Settlement transactions are irreversible; sending the wrong asset or chain can result in loss that the platform cannot recover.

A sliding-scale platform fee from 5% down to 1.35% with a $30 minimum, plus a 0.5% seller settlement fee. Network costs are passed through at cost and shown at funding.

When you create a deal you choose the fee payer: the buyer, the seller, or a split. The seller settlement fee is always borne by the seller.

No. The split is whatever the buyer and seller agree to — 50/50, 70/30, or any ratio. You set the buyer's share when creating the deal, and the seller covers the exact remainder. Use the fee calculator to preview any ratio.

Use the fee calculator on the Fees page or in your dashboard. It shows exactly what the buyer sends and the seller receives, from both points of view, for any split ratio.

Either side can open a dispute from the deal. A neutral mediator reviews the evidence, applies the written terms, and issues a final decision — release, refund, or a partial settlement.

It depends on the complexity and how quickly both sides submit evidence. The mediator may ask follow-up questions before deciding.

Yes. A deal that has not been funded can be cancelled without a dispute, and no platform fee applies because no funds were held.

No. AI-assisted evidence summarisation, fraud/risk scoring, and the contract scanner are in development and clearly labelled as such rather than shipped. Dispute decisions are made by a human mediator.

Only what the deal requires: the terms, the deliverables, and a one-time verification code. Your personal details are encrypted at rest and are not shown to the other side of the deal. Where a deal is higher-risk, or where law or our payment partners require it, we may ask you for additional verification before funds can move.

Funding is verified before a deal advances and held in escrow until the deal terms are met. Money never moves on an unverified instruction, and every movement is recorded in a double-entry ledger.

Sensitive deal details are envelope-encrypted at rest, access is scoped on a need-to-know basis, and the presence of a mediator on a deal is kept private to both sides.

Email erik.cox@fidesvault.com with steps to reproduce. Please report privately and do not access other users' data or disclose publicly until we have resolved the issue.

Open Settings → Security and toggle two-factor authentication. We recommend keeping login alerts and step-up confirmation enabled too.

No. Once a deal is funded, the financial breakdown — including the split — is locked as an immutable snapshot on the deal so it cannot shift later.

In the vast majority of cases, the payout is executed within one hour of buyer approval. For complex deals or those with additional verification steps the process can take up to 24 hours. If a deal enters a disputed state, the mediator will review the evidence and issue a decision; disputed payouts may take up to 7 days from when the dispute is opened.

Once a deal is funded and both parties have verified each other, the seller has 3 calendar days to complete delivery of the agreed goods or services. If the seller has not fulfilled the terms within that window, the deal auto-cancels and the held funds are fully refunded to the buyer. This rule protects buyers from indefinite waits and incentivises sellers to complete promptly.

After the seller marks a deal as delivered, the buyer enters an inspection window — a period both parties agree to before the deal is funded. The buyer must either approve delivery or raise a dispute before this window closes. If the window lapses without any action, the funds are automatically released to the seller. This keeps deals moving while giving the buyer fair time to verify.

When a deal is initiated, the buyer generates a 48-digit code and shares it with the seller through an out-of-band channel of their choosing (a message app, email, phone call, etc.). The seller enters this code on their end. Both sides seeing and confirming the same code proves they are talking to the same person they made the deal with and that neither is being impersonated.

Every account starts in good standing. Your trust level is a rolling score influenced by your deal history. Completing deals on time and without disputes earns positive signals. Missing deadlines, having disputed deals decided against you, or cancelling funded deals drops your score. A lower trust level may limit deal sizes or require additional verification steps. Consistent good behaviour over time allows your level to recover.

Yes. When you view a deal invite you can see the counterparty's trust badge, the total number of completed deals, and their average rating left by past partners. For privacy, their email address and full name are never shown to you. This gives you meaningful signal without exposing personal information.

Freelance and B2B services, marketplace orders, milestone-based projects, domain and website transfers, digital products, and legitimate account transfers — provided they are legal and not on our Prohibited items list. Physical goods, regulated financial instruments, and anything banned by that policy cannot be traded. If you are unsure whether something is permitted, check the Prohibited items page before proceeding.

Yes. From your deal history you can clone the settings of a completed deal — the amount, settlement asset, network, fee split, and terms — into a new draft. Only the deal configuration is cloned; the counterparty invitation is never reused. You will invite the other party fresh each time, which ensures the verification code flow is always conducted anew for security.

If a deal invite is not acted on within the expiry window, or if the deal is funded but the 3-day delivery window lapses without completion, the deal auto-cancels. For auto-cancels on funded deals, any held funds are returned in full to the buyer's registered withdrawal address. No platform fee is charged on auto-cancelled deals.

No specific wallet is required. Any wallet that can send and receive the chosen asset on the chosen network will work — whether that is a hardware wallet, a browser-extension wallet, a mobile wallet, or an exchange withdrawal. You send to the escrow address shown in the deal and receive your payout to the withdrawal address you register in your account settings.

Address poisoning is an attack where a bad actor sends a tiny "dust" transaction to your wallet from an address that looks nearly identical to one you regularly use, hoping you will accidentally copy it next time. FidesVault's address-poisoning protection ensures that look-alike addresses from dust transactions are never auto-filled in the withdrawal address field. Your registered payout address is always taken from your verified account settings, not from your transaction history.

After buyer approval (or automatic release at the end of the inspection window), a mediator performs a final review to confirm there are no outstanding disputes or compliance flags. Once cleared, the payout is executed to the seller's registered withdrawal address. The deal record updates with the transaction reference so both parties can independently verify the transfer.