Pursuing losses

Wherever business is conducted, risk will follow. BuiltByBit’s community is no exception.

No matter how carefully we choose our transacting partners, it is all but inevitable that at some point, someone will fail to provide what was agreed. When this happens and our platform’s own enforcement is not enough to pursue the resulting losses, we must turn to the court system to seek recompense.

Know firstly that legal advise should be sought from neither BuiltByBit nor its members. We strongly recommend consulting with a licensed attorney before proceeding with litigation, regardless of the type or value of the loss.

Precursory​

The best thing you will ever be able to do for yourself, when it comes to pursing losses, is to set yourself up to be able to pursue them before ever having started. You don’t want your ability to reclaim what’s yours to be dependent upon luck, so set up an unshakable groundwork.

Firstly, you need to ensure that you have confirmed the identity of the person you’re dealing with. It needs to be provable that the person you dealt with online is the person they say they are, and the person who you are taking to court. Do this before the deal takes place. Do not rely on your ability to obtain this information after a fall-through.

BuiltByBit offers its community a baseline contract for all transactions called the Merchant Agreement. This agreement serves to fill in voids in the contracts that our users form with each other, whenever they fail to adequately describe their respective responsibilities. However, this only applies to BuiltByBit’s enforcement. In order to ensure that the Merchant Agreement’s terms will hold up and be able to protect you in a court of law, you must ensure that all parties involved in your transaction agree to be bound by them. Depending on your region, a verbal agreement may not be adequate for some of the terms, so if you care to reclaim potential losses, do insist on a signature by both parties.

Why ensure that a court will acknowledge the Merchant Agreement?

The Merchant Agreement specifies that BuiltByBit will be able to act as a binding arbiter in the case of a dispute or alleged violation. This means that by simply ensuring that you obtain proof of signature on this agreement, in the case of a scam, you will be able to use BuiltByBit’s public ruling on your scam report as evidence of debt. Having this may save you countless hours spent in a long and uncertain legal battle with all of the expensive costs one entails.

It is our sincere hope that anyone on our platform who has been scammed will be able to, as quickly and painlessly as possible, pursue and successfully recuperate their losses.

Transaction Performance​

The process of protecting yourself is not something that starts at the end or ends at the start. Throughout the whole execution of the transaction, you must ensure that you’re keeping consistent and reliable logs of every interaction. Avoid calls unless you’re able to record it, and always record receiving the permission of each participant to record the call.

Moreover, avoid conversing on platforms where logs may be deleted by the other party, or where the platform itself does not explicitly support the conducting of business deals on their platform. Emails through a reliable provider or BuiltByBit conversations are our recommended places to be having these conversations.

Recovery​

Hopefully at this point you’ve gone through all of the above steps to ensure that you can properly pursue any potential losses in court. If not, it isn’t hopeless, but it may be significantly more difficult, lengthy and costly as well as unlikely to end favorably. If you’ve not taken adequate precautions, then please take care to do so next time. Don’t make the same mistake twice.

Regardless of how much it may help, BuiltByBit will always be here to provide whatever logs or information that we are able to in order to help you fight your case. Simply have a subpoena for the required information sent to [email protected] and a response will be provided without undue delay.

Unfortunately, given that we cannot account for every individual circumstance in every combination of regions, the extent of legal advice that we can and should provide ends with this. When deciding whether or not to litigate, the only source of legal advice you should be relying on is the advice of a qualified attorney whose responsibility it is to attend to you and your specific situation.

Everything written here is just a baseline. There is far more that you can and should be doing in order to ensure the security of your assets, but again, consult with someone qualified who can advise you on your specific needs.

Good luck, and stay safe.