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Buying or selling from someone you've never met is a real risk online. Here's exactly what stands between you and that risk on F9, and why each piece works the way it does.
When you pay for something, that money doesn't go straight to the seller. F9 holds it. It only moves to them once you confirm you actually received your item. If a seller never ships or never shows up, you get your money back — you never have to fight for a refund on something that just never happened.
If you're meeting in person, the buyer generates a 6-digit code and shows it to the seller at the handoff — not before, not over chat. That timing is the whole point: a code sitting on the order page for days is something someone could screenshot and use to fake a delivery that never happened. Generating it only at the actual meetup, in front of each other, means the code is proof the handoff really took place.
Buyers
Only generate it once you're actually with the seller. It's good for 10 minutes, so there's no rush, but there's also nothing to forward ahead of time.
Sellers
Ask the buyer for their code when they arrive — you won't see it anywhere yourself until they show you. That's intentional; it's the buyer's proof to give, not yours to look up.
A seller who doesn't move an order forward within 24 hours of payment automatically refunds the buyer — you don't need to notice or ask. On the other side, once a seller marks something delivered, the buyer has 7 days to confirm; if they don't, payment releases to the seller on its own. Both timers exist so one side's silence can't hold the other side's money or item hostage.
Either side can raise a dispute at almost any point after payment. The other person gets a chance to agree with what happened or contest it. If they agree, it resolves immediately. If they contest it, F9 steps in, looks at what both sides submit, and decides. Nothing gets settled by whoever shouts loudest.
None of this asks you to trust a stranger. It is built so you don not have to.