Why you must keep communication on-platform
Every protection on AutoGineer operates on the on-platform record. Move the engagement and the protections do not follow it.
Moving to email or a messaging app feels harmless, and it is the single most expensive mistake people make here. The protections are not a policy that follows you around — they are mechanical, and they operate on money we hold and a record we can read. Take away either and there is nothing left to protect you with.
On-platform
- Money is held in escrow before work starts.
- Every message, file, and approval is timestamped.
- A dispute can be decided on that record.
- A card chargeback can be answered with evidence.
- Support can actually see what happened.
Off-platform
- No escrow. Someone is trusting a stranger.
- No record anyone neutral can read.
- No dispute process available at all.
- A chargeback is the only remedy, and it is brutal for both.
- Support cannot help, however much we want to.
Common ways this gets proposed
Both sides do it, usually with a reasonable-sounding motive. The motive does not change the outcome.
- “Let’s do this one directly and skip the fee.” The fee is what pays for escrow and dispute resolution. Skipping it means skipping those.
- “Just email me the files, it’s faster.” It is marginally faster and it deletes your delivery evidence.
- “Send me a bank transfer and I’ll start today.” There is no mechanism to recover that money if work never appears.
- “Add me on a messaging app so we can talk properly.” Then nothing you agreed exists anywhere we can read.
It is also a rule, not just unwise
Sharing contact details to take work off-platform breaches the terms both parties accepted, is screened for automatically in posts and attachments, and puts both accounts at risk — including the one that only agreed to it.
If someone asks you to move off-platform, you do not have to argue. Decline in the platform chat — which also creates a record that you declined — and report it if they persist.
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