Please find below explanations of what this website is for, what it does, how to use it, and further explanations and answers to other frequently asked questions.
- What is this website for?
The primary aim is to provide a platform, Bahter, for anybody to list goods and services that others may want to acquire, but on the basis of exchanging them, either for goods or services, or for our own internal virtual currency, Sents. - What if I want to buy an item in my currency?
The only things you can buy with real money on Bahter are our membership plans or our virtual currency, Sents; so to obtain a listed item you either need to purchase some Sents using a debit or credit card (if you don’t already have enough), or offer something in exchange that you have listed on the site. - What is The Vault?
The Vault is a separate, but connected part of the site, that is intended to allow members to trade Sents for real money at that day’s exchange rate against the Thai baht. - How do members get real money for their Sents?
If you want to sell your Sents, first you transfer the amount you want to sell to a special ‘escrow’ account (there is a minimum of 1000 Sents that you can sell), that holds the Sents for you until either a sale is made, or you change your mind. Then you fill in and submit a very simple form, with just a title (the amount of Sents you want to sell is already filled in). If someone buys your Sents, the money will first come to the site via whatever method the buyer chooses (see ‘What payment methods are available?’ below); if the correct amount has been transferred, the site will transfer the Sents from the escrow account to the buyer, and the payment, less a small fee (see 5 below), to you. - Are there any fees for selling my Sents?
When you agree to sell your Sents by submitting the listing and transferring your Sents to the escrow account, you are agreeing to pay a small percentage of the amount when a sale is made, which will be taken from the payment made by the buyer. You can find the current fees on the List Your Sents page. If no sale is made, there is no fee, and the Sents are transferred back to you. - Can you explain the exchange rate?
When this platform launched, it did so with an exchange rate against the baht of 1:1; i.e. 1 Sent was equal to 1 Thai baht. Every day the sales of Sents are logged, and an average is calculated over the previous 7 days; then by using a mathematical formula the system works out each day if the sales were above or below or equal to the average of the previous 7 days, and by how much, and the exchange rate goes up, down or remains the same the next day accordingly. All purchases of Sents are made according to that day’s exchange rate. The current exchange rate is displayed on every page of the site. - Why do you use Thai baht?
While our parent company (SentLive Ltd) is a UK company, the people behind it are based in Thailand, and this (of course) also played a part in the name Bahter, a very obvious combination of the currency and the concept of barter. - Is there any way to get Sents other than buying it?
Yes! To start with everybody who registers with Bahter is given Sents completely FREE! But there are several other ways to get more; firstly, of course, by listing items and another member buying them for Sents; then there is a referrals system, where anybody else who registers with your referral link, awards you an additional 100 Sents; you will also get a bonus 50 Sents every time you purchase Sents, and another 50 Sents each time you list an item on Bahter (limited to once a day), plus a number of other bonuses including clicking on links and regular prize draws. You can find details of all current bonuses on the Earn More Sents page of the Bahter site. And of course you will get more Free Sents if you subscribe to one of our paid Memberships. In addition you can also earn Sents on our parent site, SentLive, and your wallet is updated across the sites. - Do you charge a fee to list items, or any other fees?
As already noted above, there is a percentage fee on a successful sale of Sents. There is absolutely no charge to list items on Bahter. Other than our optional paid Membership Plans there are no other fees. - What is the process for listing goods or services on Bahter?
Once you have logged in, click on List Your Swap Now!, which will open a list of categories to choose from; select the appropriate category for your listing and a simple form will open to fill out giving details of what you are offering, including what the Sents price is, a description, a title, a video link and up to 5 images. Then click ‘Submit’ and you’re done! Your submission will be reviewed, and providing it doesn’t break any laws, or any of our terms and conditions, it will be approved and published to the relevant category within Goods, Services or Other (Lifetime and Annual members get immediate publication). You will receive email notifications of this, and any other activity concerning your listing(s), as long as your email address is correct. All approved listings will run for at least 15 days; if there is no swap, or sale for Sents, in that time, the listing will expire (paying members can renew these listings). Members are welcome to list the same items again. - What happens when someone wants to swap an item or buy it with Sents?
On every Swap listing clicking the Make An Offer button opens a form to fill in and submit either a swap or Sents offer. The offer is sent to the listing owner by email, with a link for them to respond – if they accept the offer of a swap, an email is sent to the member who made the offer informing them, with the email address of the listing owner so they can arrange the exchange of the item(s). If a Sents offer was made and is accepted, an email is sent to the member who made the offer with a link for them to transfer the agreed amount to the escrow account on Bahter; once that has been done, another email is sent with the email address of the listing owner so they can arrange the exchange of the item(s). Once the transaction has been completed, both parties need to confirm this via a link on the site. - What happens if there is a problem with a transaction between two members?
In the event of a mistake or dispute over a listing where one party says the transaction has been completed while the other says it hasn’t, the two parties are both asked to complete a dispute form where they can provide evidence of their position, such as photographs or email exchanges. The Bahter team will examine these and then make a binding decision, which will also take into account any previous issues that there may have been. We anticipate that any such incidents are likely to be mistakes (e.g. clicking the wrong option), but we make it very clear in our Terms and Conditions that any deliberate action by a user that breaks the Terms and Conditions can result in account termination and/or zeroing of their Sents balance, and we would regard any attempt by a user to steal from another user, or to try and ‘game’ the system in some way to be a serious breach that would warrant such punishments. There would also be no refund of anything purchased on the site in such a scenario. - What if I need to change any of my details, such as email address?
You can view your current account details on your Dashboard, and you can edit those details here. The Dashboard is also where you can view and edit your listings, check how many Sents are in your Wallet, and various other things. - What payment methods are available to use on Bahter?
Currently we accept payments via credit and debit cards through Stripe. We hope to add direct bank transfers in the future. - How do I contact you?
All pages on the site have a Contact Us button that opens a form that you can fill in and submit any questions, feedback, suggestions or problems you might have; otherwise you can send an email to us at admin@bahter.sentlive.com.