Your money waits on trust
When you fund a payment, the money moves from your bank into a dedicated BNZ client trust account. The seller can see it's there, but they can't touch it - release is your action, not theirs.
Buyer protection
Buyer protection, in plain English.
What happens to your money, what you can do when something goes wrong, and the one honest limit - written for people, not lawyers.
A dispute freezes it instantly
If something's wrong, raise a dispute or a refund request from your payment page. The moment you do, the payment is frozen: it can't be released to the seller or paid out until it's resolved.
Refunds go back where they came from
When a dispute resolves in your favour, the full amount you paid is returned to the account you paid from. No platform fee is charged on a refund.
A free, independent backstop
If you and the seller can't agree and you're unhappy with our decision, you can take it to FSCL - an approved independent dispute resolution scheme. wlbr is member 9690. It's free for consumers.
Our public SLA
What we commit to when you raise a dispute.
These aren't aspirations - they're how the system is built. The escalation timer below is enforced by the same code that moves the money.
- 01
Instant freeze
The moment your dispute is raised the money stops: no release, no payout, no exceptions while it's open.
- 02
Human review, 72-hour escalation
Every dispute is reviewed by a person. If yours is still open after 72 hours it's automatically escalated to senior review - the system escalates it, not your follow-up emails.
- 03
Independent final say
Still unhappy? FSCL (registration 9690) can review our decision independently, free for consumers.
The one honest limit
Once you release a payment, it's final. Released money belongs to the seller and we can't pull it back - that finality is exactly what lets sellers trust the system enough to start work. So release only when you genuinely have what you paid for, and use the dispute button the moment something feels wrong rather than waiting. Before you fund at all, check the seller's verification and ratings: escrow protects your money, it can't choose who you hire.
See the proof, not the promise.
The transparency page shows live figures from the ledger - funds held, released, refunded, and how fast disputes actually resolve.