Escrow and Buyer Protection
Every dollar you spend in the Paid Promotion marketplace is escrowed end to end. This page explains exactly what that means from the buyer's side, which protections fire automatically, and when you'd ever need to act yourself.
The escrow lifecycle
- You pay at checkout. The money leaves your wallet and moves into escrow — the channel owner cannot touch it.
- The owner accepts (or doesn't). A countdown starts the moment you book (currently 24 hours, shown live on the order). Decline or timeout = automatic full refund to your wallet. You do nothing.
- The post goes live. Either the owner posts it manually, or (if they opted in) our bot auto-posts and pins it at the window open.
- The monitor watches. Our bot repeatedly checks that the post is still live and still pinned for the promised top-hours, and samples views, forwards and reactions on a schedule throughout the run. The check cadence is a benefit of your plan and is locked onto the order at purchase — a plan change later can't downgrade a protection mid-placement.
- You get a verification window. After delivery you have a short window (up to 48 hours) to inspect the live post and raise a concern; doing nothing counts as a clean delivery.
- Funds release. The owner is paid only after the post has been delivered and monitor-checked clean — the exact release timing depends on the owner's standing, never sooner than a clean check. A monitor flag or an open dispute pauses the release.
A metric the monitor could not measure is recorded as unknown, never as zero, and "we didn't look" is never treated as "nobody saw it". Payout decisions only ever ride on real observations.
Protections that fire without a dispute
| Protection | What triggers it | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-refund on decline / timeout | Owner declines, or the accept window lapses | Full refund, automatic |
| Verified Delivery Insurance (included on Elite plans and above) | Our monitor flags the delivery as failed (post deleted early, unpinned early, altered) | Automatic refund of the held funds, plus a goodwill service credit — no dispute, because our own bot witnessed it |
| Guaranteed-views make-good | A placement with a view guarantee delivers fewer measured views than guaranteed | An automatic pro-rata refund of the shortfall. If the placement could not be measured at all, the guarantee premium itself is refunded |
| Onflow Buyer Protection Fund | Named on your cart at checkout | The fund backs guaranteed-view shortfalls and monitor-verified delivery failures — made good automatically |
| Late-decline / availability refunds | A channel goes unavailable between quoting and paying | The cart refreshes and nothing is charged for the vanished line |
The guarantee terms in force (coverage percentage, premium, minimum channel reach) are set by the platform and shown wherever the guarantee is offered — always the same numbers checkout charges by. Channels with very low advertised reach aren't sold guarantees at all.
What the fee funds
The cart's "What your fee covers" panel names the platform-unique services behind your fee, resolved for your plan: escrow on every dollar, the delivery monitor and its cadence, automatic make-goods, dispute arbitration with a published response target on higher plans, verified metrics and proof certificates, delivery insurance on eligible plans, and the buyer-protection fund. If the marketplace is in single-fee mode, your side carries no buyer fee at all — you pay the channel's list price, and the cart labels it "List price · no buyer fee added".
When you do act: disputes
For anything the automatic protections don't catch, you have the dispute path on every delivered order — see Raising a dispute. Held funds freeze while we investigate, the dispute can be raised up to 14 days after delivery, and an upheld concern refunds you.
Discounts never come out of the owner's pocket
Worth knowing because it keeps owners happy to keep selling: platform discounts (promo codes, volume discount, bundle discounts) come out of Onflow Ads's own commission and are floored at the owner's payout — the owner always receives the price they published. Owner-authored discounts (spotlight deals, perks) are the owner's own offer and reduce both sides. Either way, the total shown on the pay button is the total charged.
FAQ and troubleshooting
My cart shows a different count on my phone than my laptop
The cart is stored in your browser and, on Lite plans and above, synced to your account. Open the cart page on either device — it pulls the server copy and reconciles. If two devices edited at once, one device's save is refused and it's refreshed with the latest cart, with a notice that the cart was changed on another device.
A channel disappeared from my cart
If a listing is paused or removed by its owner (or a format is withdrawn) between adding and paying, the cart prunes the line automatically and tells you. Nothing was charged.
Checkout says my reliability is too low
Paid Promotions requires a minimum reliability score to book or bid (the exact floor is shown in the message, e.g. "at least 4/10"). Reliability recovers with clean, on-time activity — and falls with things like upheld fraud findings or rejected dispute claims.
Checkout says I've hit my monthly placements
Your plan includes a set number of placements per calendar month; the cart shows "X of N used". Cancelled and refunded bookings do not count against it. Remove lines or upgrade your plan to continue.
The owner hasn't accepted — how long do I wait?
The order badge shows a live countdown (24 hours from booking). If it expires, the booking auto-declines and you're refunded in full — nothing to do.
The post is live but views look low
Give the monitor time — views are sampled on a schedule across the whole run, and the campaign metrics use the peak observation. "Measuring…" on a placement means exactly that. If the placement carried a view guarantee and finishes short, the make-good refund is automatic.
The post was deleted before its promised time
If our monitor sees it, the release to the owner pauses; on insured plans (Elite and above) you're refunded automatically with a service credit. Otherwise, open a dispute from the order within 14 days of delivery — the frozen delivery-proof archive is the evidence.
Can I change my ad after paying?
No — the creative is frozen into the booking (that's what the delivery-proof archive verifies). Cancel (see cancellation rules) and rebook if you must change the post.
Do I get anything if a post stayed up but was edited?
Monitor captures compare the live content against the frozen "creative as booked" and flag it "edited since booking" in the proof archive. "The content was altered" is one of the standard dispute reasons.
Where's my refund?
Refunds go to your Onflow Ads wallet, not your card — check the wallet page and the order's status badge (DECLINED / CANCELLED / REFUNDED all mean the money moved back). The Activity page (https://onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/paid-promotion/activity) lists every event on your account as it happened.
Something failed to load
Every Paid Promotions page distinguishes a display hiccup from real data: if you see "We couldn't reach …" with a Retry button, your bookings and escrow are untouched — it's a connection problem, not a marketplace one.
Next: Raising a dispute — the manual escalation path for what the automatic protections didn't catch.