The marketplace,
defended.
No public DMs. No outbound links from strangers. No off-platform payments. No bots, no spoofed identities, no copy-paste portfolios.
Other freelance platforms inherited their architecture from a more innocent internet — and now spend most of their engineering trying to patch it. AE Studio was designed against scammers from the first line of code. This page is exactly how.
If you're ever scammed on AE Studio — proven, even once — we refund 100% of your project value.
No deductibles. No insurance paperwork. No "we'll review your claim within 60 days." The first creative marketplace to back its trust claims with money.
100%
Trust Promise refund cover
<48h
Application review SLA
<48h
Dispute resolution SLA
4%
Talent acceptance rate target
0
Public DMs ever permitted
Q3 2026
First Trust Report (target)
Seven layers,
no escapes.
Each layer fails closed. To scam someone on AE Studio you'd have to defeat all seven. We've designed it so no one ever has.
Layer 01
Identity
“Government ID + biometric. Reviewed by humans.”
Every AE Studio account — talent and buyer — passes a Persona-grade government-ID check, a liveness-detected biometric face match, and a human review by our trust team. Re-verified every 12 months.
- Persona ID document + selfie liveness check
- Sanctions-list cross-reference (OFAC, EU, UK, AU)
- PEP screening for accounts >$25K cumulative
- Re-verification every 12 months
- Talent: tax-ID (1099 / W-8BEN / equivalents) verified
Layer 02
Application
“Every profile is hand-verified. Bots can't survive a curator.”
There's no open registration for talent. Every applicant is reviewed by a AE Studio curator who inspects portfolios, traces references, and verifies prior client engagements. Bots, scrapers, and shell accounts don't make it past day one.
- Hand review by our curator team within 48h
- Reference clients contacted directly
- Portfolio reverse-image-searched for theft
- Repeat-offender ban-list consulted across markets
- Outright reject rate: 96%
Layer 03
Domains
“Portfolio links are DNS-verified to the talent.”
Talent prove ownership of their portfolio domains via DNS records or HTTPS endpoints — not just by pasting a URL. This stops the most common identity-spoofing scam: a fraudster passing off another designer's portfolio as their own.
- DNS TXT or HTTPS endpoint verification
- Re-verified monthly
- Disposable / recently-registered domains down-ranked
- Phishing TLDs (.zip, .review, etc) blocked
Layer 04
Communication
“On-platform only. Every message scanned. Off-platform requests blocked.”
Public DMs don't exist on AE Studio. Talent and buyers can only message after a brief is matched. Even then, every message is scanned in real time — and outbound links, phone numbers, emails, and social handles are auto-redacted until the project officially starts.
- AI + rule-based scam detection on every message
- Outbound URLs, emails, phone numbers redacted in unmatched DMs
- WhatsApp / Telegram / Skype redirects auto-flagged
- Voice & video only via AE Studio-hosted rooms (LiveKit)
- End-to-end encryption on attachments
- One-tap report on every message
Layer 05
Payments
“Stripe Connect escrow. Never off-platform.”
Every dollar is held in Stripe Connect escrow until milestones are met. Off-platform payment requests — to PayPal, Wise, crypto wallets, or bank accounts — trigger an immediate trust review. New talent are on a 7-day rolling release for their first three projects.
- Stripe Connect escrow on 100% of transactions
- Off-platform payment requests trigger automatic review
- Crypto, gift cards, wire-only requests permanently banned
- Charge-back protection for buyers (Stripe Radar)
- 7-day rolling hold for new talent (first 3 projects)
- IP transfer documented automatically with payment release
Layer 06
Files & links
“Every upload sandboxed. Every link scanned.”
Files uploaded by either side are scanned for malware (ClamAV + cloud sandbox), watermarked with origin metadata, and encrypted at rest with per-project keys. URLs in messages and deliverables are checked against Google Safe Browsing and PhishTank in real time.
- ClamAV + cloud-sandbox malware scan on every upload
- Watermark with sender + project hash
- Encrypted at rest, AES-256, per-project keys
- Google Safe Browsing + PhishTank URL checks
- Macro-enabled Office docs and unsigned executables blocked
Layer 07
Recovery
“Real human disputes. 48-hour SLA. 100% guarantee.”
If anything ever does go wrong, you don't argue with a chatbot. A AE Studio trust specialist owns your case, replies within 48 hours, and has authority to issue full refunds, ban accounts, and pursue offenders legally. Backed by the AE Studio Trust Promise — the only money-backed guarantee in our category.
- Human-owned dispute, named specialist, 48h reply SLA
- Authority to issue full refunds without escalation
- 100% project-value refund if scam is proven
- Coordinated with law enforcement when warranted
- All resolutions published anonymously in our Trust Report
Things you'll never see on AE Studio.
Detected, blocked, and banned by automated rules + human review. No exceptions, no warnings.
The same scam doesn't work twice.
A side-by-side, on the trust mechanics that matter most.
| Mechanic | AE Studio | Fiverr | Upwork |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open registration (no review) | No | Yes | Yes |
| External links allowed in chat | No | Yes | Yes |
| Off-platform payment loophole | No | common | common |
| ID + biometric verification mandatory | Yes | No | buyers only |
| Domain DNS-bound to portfolio | Yes | No | No |
| Scam detection on every message | Yes | partial | partial |
| Money-backed scam refund guarantee | 100% | No | No |
| Public Trust Report (quarterly) | Yes | No | No |
Real people read every dispute.
The AE Studio Trust team is 18 specialists across London, NY, and Tokyo — ex-Stripe, ex-Airbnb, ex-fraud prosecution. Every dispute is owned by a named human. Every refund is signed off by a real person. No chatbot in the loop.
18
Trust specialists
<48h
Reply SLA
24/7
On-call rotation
One tap. Real action.
Every message, every profile, every file has a one-tap report. Reports are triaged within the hour. The reporter is updated personally — no ticket-system black hole.
We will publish what we block.
AE Studio launched this quarter. Our first Trust Report — bad actors banned, refunds paid, scam vectors retired — publishes Q3 2026, audited by a third party. Below is exactly what it will contain. Until then, we report zero outcomes we haven't earned.
—
Scam attempts auto-blocked
Counted by our message scanner. Will be reported in Q3 2026.
—
Bad actors banned
Talent applications rejected at curator review + buyers banned for fraud.
—
Net buyer loss to fraud
Refunds paid under the Trust Promise. We commit to publishing every dollar.
—
Successful phishing attempts
Domain-bound profiles + link scanning are designed to keep this at zero.
The cost of trust — paid by us, not you.
Every dollar AE Studio spends on trust infrastructure is a dollar you don't pay in lost work, deleted weekends, or chasing offshore scammers across timezones. That's not a feature — it's the whole point.