Fair-Trading Policy

Fair Trading on TrustForge

TrustForge works because buyers and sellers can trust each other. Three behaviours undermine that trust and are therefore forbidden — they trigger automatic consequences, from score penalties to account suspension.

1. No Extortion

Threats of negative reviews, disputes, or public complaints to extract discounts or extra services are prohibited. Examples:

• “Give me 20% off or I'll leave a 1-star review.”
• “I'll open a dispute if you don't throw in X.”
• “I'll post on Discord how bad you are.”

2. No Fake Disputes

Disputes are for real delivery problems — missing goods, wrong delivery, broken account logins, etc. Using disputes as a lever for refunds on correctly-delivered orders is an abuse of the buyer-protection system.

Sellers document delivery via mandatory screenshot (Buyer-Fraud Phase 1). Admins review the proof on dispute. False claims without factual basis lead to score penalties and possibly account suspension.

3. No Off-Platform Payments

Payments outside of TrustForge (PayPal, crypto, Discord DM payment, bank transfer, etc.) violate our terms of service. Reasons:

• No escrow protection — buyers have no recourse on non-delivery.
• Sellers can't build reputation in our review system.
• No tax / invoicing trail for either party.
• Violates anti-money-laundering rules (KYC bypass).

Consequences

Violations are detected automatically via chat-scanning and manual admin review. Stepped consequences:

1. First warning + score penalty (−5 to −15)
2. On repeat: longer auto-release windows and reduced listing visibility
3. Severe or intentional cases: account suspension with appeal option

How We Scan

TrustForge scans chat messages in real time for known patterns (keyword/regex matching). Detected violations are stored for 12 months and then automatically deleted. On account deletion, sender references are anonymised. Full message text is not persistently stored outside the chat itself — only the triggering snippet for the audit log.