PendFunds
A safe way to buy and sell online with people you don’t know.
Buy and sell without the risk
PendFunds is a website where people buy and sell things. When you pay, your money doesn’t go straight to the seller. PendFunds keeps it safe, and only sends it to the seller once you say you got what you paid for.
My role
- Product Design
- UI Design
- Design System
- Team Dashboard
I designed the whole product: how deals are set up, how the money is kept safe, how problems are sorted out, and the screens the PendFunds team uses.
Paying a stranger is risky
When you buy from a stranger online, someone has to trust first. If you pay first, you might never get the item. If the seller sends first, they might never get paid.
- 01
The payment
You send money to someone you’ve never met.
- 02
The wait
You don’t know if the item is on its way. You keep messaging to ask.
- 03
The argument
If something goes wrong, there’s no one to help you sort it out.
Never just a UI project
An escrow app.
A safe middle point between buyer and seller, a fair way to settle problems, a way to know who can be trusted, a place for buyers and sellers to find each other, and a way for PendFunds to earn from every deal, without any of it feeling complicated.
Nobody asks to “create an escrow contract with mediation”. They ask whether they’re about to be robbed. So I organised the whole product around the five questions people actually ask.
- Q1
Is my money safe?
It goes to PendFunds, not the seller, and only moves when you say the item arrived.
Answered by the contract and escrow - Q2
Has the other person delivered?
One status word, the same for both of you.
Answered by the deal status - Q3
What if something goes wrong?
Report it, and the money freezes until someone neutral has looked.
Answered by disputes - Q4
Who decides if we disagree?
A person at PendFunds reads both sides, then refunds, releases or splits the money.
Answered by the team dashboard - Q5
Can I trust this person?
A score built only from deals they actually finished.
Answered by the trust score
What worried buyers and sellers, and how I fixed it
Buyers were scared of paying and getting nothing.
They worried about fake sellers, fake products, and no one listening if they complained.
PendFunds holds the money in the middle. The buyer can see it’s safe, and it only goes to the seller after the buyer says the item arrived.
Sellers were scared of not getting paid.
They worried about buyers lying that the item never arrived, or taking their money back through the bank.
Every deal has written terms that both sides agree to. If there’s a problem, both sides show proof, and a neutral person decides who gets the money. It can also be split.
No one knew what was happening with their deal.
Buyers and sellers kept messaging each other to ask.
Every deal shows one simple word, like “In Progress” or “Delivered”. Buyer and seller both see the same word.
Before any money moves, there’s an agreement
Every deal starts with a short contract. If something goes wrong later, this is what everyone looks back at.
Five plain fields, no legal language
Who, what, how much, by when, and what counts as “done”. The contract stays “Pending” until the other person accepts, and it works for deals agreed anywhere: share one link, even if you met in an Instagram DM.
Every contract has its own chat
The conversation lives inside the contract, not in a separate inbox. If there’s a dispute later, the messages are already there as proof, so nobody has to build a case.
The money waits until the buyer says yes
Here is what happens from start to finish.
- 01
Set up payments
First, you connect a payment account (Stripe), so money can be sent and held safely.
- 02
The buyer pays
The money doesn’t go to the seller yet. PendFunds keeps it safe and shows it as “held”.
- 03
The seller sends the item
While the seller is sending it, the deal says “In Progress”.
- 04
The item arrives
The seller marks it as delivered. The money is still being kept safe.
- 05
The buyer confirms
The buyer checks the item and says “yes, I got it”. Only the buyer can do this.
- 06
The seller gets paid
Now the money goes to the seller, and the deal says “Completed”.
Help when something goes wrong
Running late
If the seller needs more time, they can ask the buyer for a few extra days. The buyer says yes or no. A deal can only be cancelled if both sides agree.
The item is wrong or missing
The buyer reports the problem and adds photos as proof. The money stays locked until a neutral person looks at both sides and decides.
Screens for the PendFunds team
The PendFunds team has its own dashboard. They can see every deal, spot the ones with problems, and read both sides of a complaint in one place.
Trust you earn by finishing deals
Reviews can be faked or bought. So the trust score only counts things that actually happened on PendFunds, and nobody can write their way into it.
- +Deal completed
- +Delivered before the deadline
- +Dispute decided in your favour
- −Dispute lost
- −Deal you cancelled
- −Missed deadline
Everything in one place
People don’t just want to buy things online. They want to know they’ll get what they paid for.
Your money stays safe until the deal is done.