Escrow, in plain words, for anyone who has been burned before

Everybody who has sold something to a stranger online has had the same two thoughts. The seller: what if I hand it over and the payment vanishes. The buyer: what if I pay and nobody turns up.

Both come down to the same fix, and it isn't trust. It's timing.

What actually happens

1. The buyer pays. The card is charged and we hold the money.
2. The two of them agree a day, in a calendar, in the app.
3. The item changes hands, and the seller photographs the moment it does.
4. The buyer accepts. That's the instant the money moves, to the seller and to the causes they chose.

If it goes wrong

The buyer reports a problem instead of accepting. The money freezes exactly where it is and the case goes to a person, with the handover photograph already attached to it.

If nothing happens at all

A meetup neither of them completes doesn't quietly pay anybody. By the next morning the money is back with the buyer and the item has relisted itself.

That's the whole trick. The money isn't with the buyer and it isn't with the seller, and neither of them can get at it until the item has actually changed hands.