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Buyer protection · free, on every order
You are about to send money to someone you have never met. This page is the honest answer to the only question that matters — what stops them from taking it and disappearing.
Your money stops in the middle. The seller does not receive it — they receive proof that it exists.
A seller on Mason Lab cannot be paid by you. They can only be paid by your confirmation.
Follow the money
No confirmation? Auto-release after the countdown. Problem? Open a dispute — funds stay locked.
The order total leaves your Mason Lab balance the moment you buy. It does not go to the seller’s wallet. It goes into an escrow position held by the platform on a double-entry ledger, where the seller cannot reach it.
The seller sees one thing: an order that is funded. That is the whole point — they know the money is real, you know they cannot touch it. Neither side can move it while it sits here, and the platform cannot spend it either.
money still heldStocked keys and accounts are handed over the second you pay. Manual delivery happens in the order chat, and the platform gives the seller 48 hours — miss that and the order cancels itself and the money comes back.
money still heldRedeem the key. Log into the account. Open the file. This is the step escrow exists for, and it is the one nobody should rush you through — the money is still held while you look.
money still heldYour confirmation is what releases escrow. Something wrong instead? Open a dispute and the money stays frozen. Say nothing at all and it auto-releases after 72 hours — you get a warning 24 hours before that happens.
Three separate clocks
These are three different timers, not three names for the same one. They do not start each other and they do not expire together.
72hours
If you never say anything after delivery, escrow releases to the seller. You are warned 24 hours before it happens. It exists so a buyer who walks away cannot freeze a seller’s money forever.
7days
Counted from delivery, and deliberately longer than the auto-release. A dispute opened after the money already moved is satisfied out of the seller’s held balance — so a late complaint is still a real complaint.
7days
7 days from your first reveal: a key or account that fails inside this window is the seller’s problem to replace. Profiled goods stay in escrow until it ends.
A fourth deadline belongs to the seller, not to you: hand-delivered orders must be handed over within 48 hours, or the order cancels itself and your money returns on its own.
When it goes wrong
Three possible endings
The full amount goes back to your Mason Lab balance. The seller is charged no commission.
The evidence favours the seller and escrow releases to them, exactly as a confirmation would.
Part back to you, part to the seller — for the cases that genuinely sit in the middle.
A refund returns the money to your Mason Lab balance, where it is ready to spend on the next order.
Read this part too
Escrow protects orders placed on Mason Lab. Pay a seller directly — crypto to a wallet, a transfer, a gift card — and there is no escrow, no dispute and no refund, whatever was promised in the chat. If someone asks you to take the deal outside, that is the moment to stop and report them.
Escrow guarantees the process, not that an item suits you. Read the listing, check the store’s record, ask before you buy. What escrow promises is that you get what was described — or your money back.
Outcomes are decided here, on the evidence both sides file, and written to the ledger. That is faster than a chargeback and it works for payment methods that have no chargeback at all — which is most of crypto.
Straight answers
The seller never receives your money at the point of sale. When you pay, the amount moves out of your Mason Lab balance into an escrow position held by the platform on a double-entry ledger. The seller sees a funded order and nothing more. The money leaves escrow only when you confirm delivery, when the 72-hour auto-release expires without a dispute, or when a dispute is decided.
Check it the moment it arrives — that is the step escrow exists for. If it is dead, open a dispute before you confirm and the money freezes where it is. Even after release the seller owes you a working replacement for 7 days from your first reveal, and the dispute window stays open for 7 days from delivery.
Stocked goods are handed over the moment you pay. For manual delivery the platform gives the seller 48 hours; if nothing is handed over inside that window the order cancels and the money returns to your Mason Lab balance without you having to argue for it.
Escrow is a position on a double-entry ledger, not a pot someone can draw on. Every movement is a balanced pair of entries carrying an idempotency key, and an order can leave escrow exactly once — back to you as a refund, or on to the seller as a release. There is no third destination, and a second exit cannot be written at all.
7 days from delivery, which is deliberately longer than the 72-hour auto-release. A dispute opened after the money has already released is paid out of the seller’s held balance, so the window means what it says even when the release happened first.
Escrow freezes immediately and nothing releases while the case is open. Both sides file evidence and the other side has 72 hours to respond. If you do not settle it between you, a senior arbiter decides between three outcomes — refund, release, or a split — and the outcome is written to the ledger.
Nothing. Buyer protection is not an add-on and there is no box to tick — it is how every order on Mason Lab works. The platform’s commission of 10% (minimum $0.05) is charged to the seller out of the released amount.
No. Escrow only exists for orders placed on Mason Lab. Paying a seller directly puts you outside every protection on this page — no held funds, no dispute, no refund. Keeping the order and the payment on the platform is the entire protection.
Every order on Mason Lab works this way — there is no unprotected checkout to pick by mistake.