How does MuleChain handle potential member conflicts and disputes?
What happens when my package is lost or arrives late?
MuleChain’s Conflict Resolution
As with any service, it’s inevitable that various occasions of disputes may arise on our platform. How will MuleChain help resolve conflicts between members?
Wait, what does MuleChain do exactly?
MuleChain empowers individuals to get items delivered faster and at a lower cost than traditional methods by coordinating with Mules and Pack Station Owners all around the world.
- A Mule is someone who wants to earn a little extra by delivering an item whilst taking a trip they were already going on anyway. You could be a Mule on your next trip.
- A Requester is someone who needs something muled from one place to another faster and cheaper than with traditional methods. You could be a Requester when your phone is stolen abroad and you need a replacement quickly.
- A Pack Station Owner is someone — or a business — that already exists and has a little extra space to store deliveries. You could be a Pack Station Owner if you have an empty drawer or some extra closet space.
What happens when my stuff is lost?
How will MuleChain ensure that muled items aren’t stolen? First, Mules will need to own enough of the MuleChain token in order to cover the muled item if it goes missing or is irreparably damaged while in their care, including the possibility that a Mule may run away with an item themselves (a fraud risk).
Secondly, when you ask someone to mule an item for you, you could choose to insure your package the same way you do with any other traditional centralized shipping corporation — with a property and casualty insurance policy (a property casualty risk).
For example, if a Requester asks a Mule to mule a $1,000 iPhone, the Mule will need to have $1,000 worth of MuleChain token MCX in their account wallet to cover the phone as collateral to prevent them from running away with the item being delivered for the Requester (to cover the fraud risk). The Requester could also choose to purchase a conventional insurance policy from a P&C insurance carrier if he/she wants to be covered by potential unintentional and accidental property damages or being stolen by a genuine third party just like if he/she would ship it through any other conventional delivery services (to cover the property casualty risk).
What happens when my stuff is late?
Think of the MuleChain app like a really cool Craigslist for getting something you need to where you need it faster and cheaper than traditional shipping companies.
Here’s a very detailed scenario, so stay with me. If a Requester pays a Mule to activate a Google Fi Pixel phone in the US with an agreement that the Mule will arrive one day before a digital nomad Requester arrives in a new country — let’s say the Requester is moving from England to France. The Mule has a flight from New York to Paris, but that flight is cancelled and rescheduled for the next day.
Because MuleChain operates off of itineraries, we have a feature that notifies all users of delayed and cancelled routes. In this instance, the Requester and the Mule will communicate over the app to come to a conclusion that it’s okay that the phone will be one day late. After all, the Requester understands that the Mule’s flight was delayed by a day as she can see it on the blockchain.
More on those automatic delay notifications
Flight delays, train cancellations, or even a massive road delay while a Mule is on a bus — these are automatically updated into the log, and/or manually entered by a Mule.
In the same LA jacket to London example, the Mule’s connecting flight from New York to London is cancelled and rescheduled to the next morning. The Mule, the Requester, the Pack Station Owner, and the Receiver are all sent a pop up notification within the app, notifying them that the muled item may arrive a little later than anticipated.
This way, the Receiver doesn’t needlessly leave that same evening to head to the Pack Station Owner’s storage facility.
So we work together to figure it out?
Yep. In MuleChain’s case, because it’s a decentralized peer to peer platform, conflicts that arise are resolved between members. MuleChain will allow countless numbers of individuals to work for themselves via the platform, and as such, requesters, mules, mule trains, and pack stations — as part of a collective cooperative — resolve disputes between themselves.
This aspect of doing business directly with other humans instead of a faceless corporation is part of what makes MuleChain so great. When people deal face to face with one another in a personal conversation, they are shown to be more civil and reasonable, and they’re more likely to understand each other’s motivations within the transaction.
Everyone gets rated, yeah?
Exactly. Every user will be rated on each transaction. Users below a certain rating will either be removed from the system or their profile will be accompanied by a pop up that warns other users that they have fallen below a threshold deemed acceptable by MuleChain users.
The degree to which their offenses, recorded by the blockchain, warrants removal or a popup will be outlined in an evolving open-source policy that will be contributed to by MuleChain users, with equal representation from each type of user.
Hey, what if someone does something I don’t like during a transaction?
The MuleChain app has a flag feature built into the platform. Each user is able to flag another user if they have acted outside of expectations set up in the transactional agreement. This will allow the offending user to try to correct the transgression. Flags also serve as reminders for users; sort of a “Hey come pick up that jacket that your dad had muled to you from LA!”
Some examples of how flags work:
- If a Mule is told they are picking up a jacket, but arrive to the Pack Station and there are shoes, the Mule would flag the Pack Station, which would in turn notify the Requester that something is up.
- If a Pack Station was told that a Mule would be picking up a jacket within a week, but no one has come by, the Pack Station owner would flag the transaction, which in turn will notify the Requester that their Receiver has not come by to pick up the muled item, and of course remind the Receiver to come pick it up.
- If a Pack Station Owner receives a late package, they will be able to flag the Mule for being late. The Mule will then be notified of that flag, and has an opportunity to explain why it was late within MuleChain.
If a Pack Station or Mule is flagged several times in a row, it hurts their rating.
How will I know for sure how my jacket got dirty?
TLDR? Immutability of the blockchain.
I’ll explain. With the immutability of the blockchain, users have access to the log of each step in the transaction so they can fully understand what has brought about a conflict. As it is a decentralized platform, MuleChain provides data such as transaction details, timestamps, and photos, etc. to the members in a dispute.
For example, the father from LA is muling a jacket to his daughter who is studying in London, but when the daughter goes to pick it up, she finds that the jacket has gotten a little dirty whilst in the Pack Station.
Everyone can see from the blockchain that the dirt was indeed from the Pack Station because when the Mule dropped it off and took a picture, it was unsoiled. What happens next?
The Pack Station Owner admits that her storage needs to be tidied, offers to clean the jacket, and learns from the experience. Next time, the Pack Station Owner’s storage area will be cleaner so she doesn’t have to take on the extra expense, and the daughter gets her warm, clean jacket for the brisk London air.
The Pack Station Owner actually then gets a good review from the daughter because of her handling of the situation and garners more customers that trust that she will handle packages with care in the future.
What if someone tries something illegal?
First, you are able to flag criminal activity to MuleChain.
Second, you are also encouraged to report illegal activity directly to the relevant authorities. If there are criminal activities involved, MuleChain will provide the data captured in the public ledger to the various authorities.
MuleChain’s role
Even though the automatic delay notifications will create a shared sense of understanding that delays will often happen out of the control of a Mule, and the ratings and flagging systems will incentivize people to resolve disputes on their own to avoid getting a bad review, some misunderstandings will still occur.
MuleChain is setup to prevent abuse, and acts as a facilitator in a potential dispute.
