Campaign Dispute Resolution System

[grantfox-oss]

Overview

CrowdPay's multisig escrow model prevents unilateral withdrawals, but it provides no mechanism for dispute resolution when a creator and contributor disagree. A contributor who believes a campaign is fraudulent has no recourse — they cannot reclaim funds, and the platform has no structured process for handling the dispute. This issue implements a complete dispute resolution workflow: a contributor can raise a dispute, the platform freezes the campaign escrow by adding a third signer and raising the threshold to 3, evidence is submitted by both parties, a platform arbitrator reviews and issues a decision, and the escrow is either released to the creator or refunded to contributors.

What needs to be built

backend/src/services/dispute.js — Dispute engine

• POST /api/campaigns/:id/disputes — contributor-initiated:

  • Validates: contributor has made at least one confirmed contribution to this campaign
  • Creates a disputes record with status: open
  • Triggers the escrow freeze: builds and submits a SetOptions transaction that adds the platform arbitrator key as a third signer (weight 1) and raises the medium threshold from 2 to 3
  • Sends email notifications to the creator and the platform ops team
  • Returns { disputeId, status: 'open', frozenAt }

• POST /api/disputes/:id/evidence — either party (creator or contributor) can submit:

  • Accepts { text, attachmentUrls: string[] } — text description + links to external evidence
  • Creates dispute_evidence record with submitted_by and role: 'creator' | 'contributor'

• POST /api/admin/disputes/:id/decide — platform arbitrator only:

  • Accepts { decision: 'release_to_creator' | 'refund_contributors', reason: string }
  • release_to_creator: removes the arbitrator signer and lowers the threshold back to 2; creator can withdraw normally
  • refund_contributors: builds a transaction that sends the campaign balance back to all contributors proportionally; requires creator + platform signatures
  • Updates dispute status to resolved; emails both parties with the decision and reason
    Frontend — Campaign page additions

• "Raise Dispute" button — visible to contributors only after the campaign deadline has passed and no withdrawal has been initiated; requires confirmation modal

• Dispute status banner on the campaign page — visible to all once a dispute is open

• Evidence submission form (in the dispute detail page): text area + "Add URL" inputs

• Admin dispute queue (/admin/disputes): list of open disputes with campaign name, dispute age, evidence count; "Review" button per dispute
  Database migrations

• disputes: id, campaign_id, raised_by, status (open | under_review | resolved), decision, reason, arbitrator_signer_added, created_at, resolved_at

• dispute_evidence: id, dispute_id, submitted_by, role, text, attachment_urls (jsonb), submitted_at

Acceptance criteria

• Raising a dispute successfully adds the arbitrator key as a third signer and raises the threshold to 3 on the Stellar campaign wallet — confirmed by fetching the account from Horizon and inspecting signers
• A contributor who has not made a confirmed contribution cannot raise a dispute — returns 403 NOT_A_CONTRIBUTOR
• refund_contributors decision correctly computes each contributor's proportional refund amount — sum of all refund amounts equals the campaign balance
• After release_to_creator decision, the arbitrator signer is removed and the threshold returns to 2 — creator can withdraw without the arbitrator's involvement
• A campaign with an active dispute cannot accept new contributions — POST /api/contributions returns 409 CAMPAIGN_DISPUTED
• Both parties receive email notifications within 60 seconds of a dispute being raised and when a decision is issued

[codefather2026]

Hi maintainer, i will like to solve this issue