Trust & Safety — SafeGate

Section 01

Overview

SafeGate exists because sending money on WhatsApp and Instagram has no safety net — pay first and hope, or lose the sale to a buyer who won't pay until they've already received the item. SafeGate sits in the middle: the buyer pays into escrow, the seller ships, and only once the buyer confirms the item arrived does the money move to the seller.

The short version of everything below: your money never touches SafeGate's own bank account. It sits with Paystack, our licensed payment processor, until a human admin — or, in one narrow and clearly-defined case, an automated rule you can see coming — approves its release.

Section 02

How Your Money Is Held

Every transaction follows the same fixed sequence. No stage can be skipped, and once a transaction starts, payment can't be routed around SafeGate — that's enforced technically, not just by policy.

Stage	What Happens
Seller creates a transaction	A unique payment link is generated for the buyer.
Buyer pays	Payment is processed by Paystack and held in escrow — not in a SafeGate account.
Seller ships	The seller uploads tracking or dispatch proof. Funds are still held.
Buyer confirms (or disputes)	The buyer has a 7-day inspection window to confirm delivery or report a problem.
Funds are released	An admin manually approves release to the seller's bank account.

The 1.5% fee (₦200 minimum) is the only charge, paid by the buyer at checkout and shown before payment is confirmed. Sellers pay nothing to receive funds.

New sellers pay no fee at all for their first 10 completed transactions. The discount is applied automatically — no code needed — and the standard 1.5% (₦200 minimum) applies from the 11th transaction onward.

Payouts are manual by design, for now. At this stage, every release to a seller is a deliberate action by an admin — not a background job nobody's watching. That trades a small amount of speed for a human checking each payout before it goes out.

Section 03

Who Can Access Your Funds

"Escrow" only means something if access is actually restricted. Here's exactly who can do what:

You can't be paid early. A seller cannot access a buyer's payment before the buyer confirms delivery — there's no button, setting, or workaround that skips this.
Buyers and sellers can't see each other's account data. Role-based access and database-level security policies (Row-Level Security) mean a buyer's dashboard simply cannot query a seller's private records, and vice versa.
Admin access is restricted to JKB Global staff only — the team that built and operates SafeGate. Releasing funds requires that access.
Card details never touch SafeGate's servers. Paystack handles all payment data directly; we only ever see a confirmation, never your card number.

Section 04

Payment & Data Security

SafeGate isn't inventing new payment infrastructure — it's built on the same security every serious Nigerian fintech relies on.

Paystack-secured payments

Every transaction is processed and verified by Paystack, a PCI-DSS compliant, licensed Nigerian payment processor.

HMAC-SHA512 webhook verification

Payment confirmations are cryptographically signed. A fake "payment successful" message can't fool the system into releasing anything.

Encrypted everywhere

HTTPS/TLS in transit, AES-256 at rest. No unencrypted connections are accepted, ever.

Passwords are never stored in plain text

All passwords are hashed with bcrypt before they're ever saved. Nobody at SafeGate — including admins — can see your actual password.

Section 05

If Something Goes Wrong

Escrow only matters if disagreements get resolved fairly. Here's the short version — the full mechanics, evidence rules, and appeal process are in the Dispute Policy.

Buyers get 7 days after the seller ships to confirm delivery or report a problem — visible on the dashboard, with a reminder before it closes.
Sellers get 24 hours to respond once a dispute is opened, also shown as a live countdown, not a silent deadline.
One case resolves automatically: if a seller never ships and never responds within 48 hours of a dispute being filed, the buyer is refunded without waiting on a human — because there's no seller-side explanation that beats "nothing shipped, no response." Every other kind of dispute (wrong item, damage, a shipment that never arrived) goes to a human for review.
Admin aims to review every other case within 24 hours of submission, weighing evidence from both sides before deciding.

Section 06

Business Verification

SafeGate is operated by a formally registered Nigerian company — not an anonymous account taking payments.

SafeGate Tech Innovations (STI)

Registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria.
2, Warri Ughelli Expressway by Simco Filling Station, Agbarho, Ughelli North, Delta State.

CAC RC 9540384

Exactly how your money is protected