Discord Middleman Tickets: Let the Middleman Write the Record

Trading servers run on middlemen. Two members want to swap items, neither wants to go first, so a member the server trusts holds both sides until each is confirmed. Most servers that do this run it through tickets, because a ticket is a private room that only your middlemen and the two traders can see.

Most of that works on any Discord ticket bot the day you set it up. One part does not, and it only shows up in a dispute: a ticket is built around the one member who opened it, and a trade has two.

How do you set up middleman tickets on Discord?

With a Middleman category, a Middleman staff role that sees only those tickets, and the AI off. Everything here is free on every plan except the form.

A new staff role gets a default set that is nearly right for middlemen, with two exceptions. Add people to tickets is not in it, and without it a middleman cannot bring the second trader in; members cannot add anyone themselves. See every ticket is in it, and it would show your middlemen every support ticket too. Untick it: the category's staff role is what lets them see trades. Both live in the dashboard under Settings, then Staff roles, or in /staff roles in Discord.

Channel mode matters too: in thread mode, somebody you add can only see the ticket if they can already see the channel its threads live in. Adding someone to a ticket covers that trap.

The other three are per category. In the dashboard, open the panel, then the category: its Advanced tab holds the staff role, the AI switch and the ping on open. With the AI off, that ping is the only thing that calls a middleman into a new trade, so check the role can actually be pinged, which staff pings covers.

One limit shapes the panel: a member can have one open ticket per panel on the free plan, three on Premium and five on Pro, counting only tickets they opened. A trader with a support ticket open cannot start a trade from that panel on Free, so on a paid plan, give trades their own panel.

How does one trade run, start to finish?

As six steps, each one written in the ticket. The handover order is your server's rule, not the bot's: some middlemen take both sides before releasing either, some take one side and let the other trader send directly. Publish yours.

The added trader can read the whole ticket from its first message, form answers included, so nothing in the form should be something one trader would not show the other.

Who is the second trader, as far as the bot knows?

A guest. A ticket has one member, the one who opened it, and everyone else in it is treated the way staff are. In a trade, that makes the two sides unequal in ways neither trader will notice until something goes wrong.

Two quieter effects follow. If the AI is on, it stops for good the moment the added trader writes, and at close the added trader can be credited in your staff statistics, because the bot reads them as part of the team.

None of this is a fault a setting can fix. What it decides is who writes the record: the middleman, the one voice in the ticket that neither trader can edit, writing for both sides.

One setting is worth changing in a trading server. By default a ticket closes when the member who opened it leaves the server, and that deletes the room, possibly while your middleman still holds the other trader's side. If your trades can run long enough for that to happen, switch Ticket closes when they leave the server off in the dashboard, under Settings, then Tickets. It is server-wide, so it changes your support tickets too.

How can a trader tell the middleman is real?

Because the middleman is in the ticket. Only your middlemen and staff can see a middleman ticket, the claim notice names the one who took it, and their profile shows your Middleman role in your server. Anybody who messages a trader privately to say they are the middleman is not one, however exact the name and avatar.

Publish that as a rule, "our middlemen never DM first", in your rules, on the panel and in the ticket's opening message. Stopping ticket scams covers the rule and the anti-sniping switch that hides who opened a new ticket for its first few seconds. Giveaway claims covers checking an account by its user ID rather than its name.

Leave one permission off the Middleman role, as it is by default: Reply as Staff. An anonymous reply shows as Staff to both traders and in the transcript, so a trader cannot tell which middleman is holding their items, and the record cannot say who released them. There is no server-wide switch for anonymity, so the role is the only place to rule it out, for everyone but holders of Manage Server.

What should the middleman write in the ticket?

The deal, each handover and the outcome, each as its own message. The transcript is the record of a trade, and it keeps less than it seems to. A message edited before the close keeps only its last wording, a message deleted before the close is gone, and a screenshot is kept as a link to the picture rather than the picture. Screenshots in tickets covers why. Text the middleman writes is the part of the ticket neither trader can change.

If a picture is the proof, save it yourself while the ticket is open, and write what it shows in a message beside it.

End with the close reason. It reaches the trader who opened the ticket in their closing message, appears on the transcript, and it is the only text staff can search later, so name both traders and both sides in it.

Who keeps the record when a trade goes wrong?

Your staff do, for both sides. Disputes arrive days later, and by then the room is gone. The trader who opened the ticket can still open its transcript from their closing message. The trader you added cannot, so their proof sits with you, which is where it belongs: the person settling a dispute should be the one holding the whole record.

A transcript opens for anyone with Manage Server and for staff whose role has Read transcripts. That permission opens every transcript in your server, support tickets included, so give it to whoever settles disputes rather than to every middleman.

To find a trade, /ticket search filters by the middleman who claimed it, by the member who opened it, and by words in the close reason. It has no filter for somebody who was added, which is why the reason should name both traders. A log channel, free on every plan, also posts every close with its reason, a running list of trades your staff can scroll back through. Ticket search and ticket logs cover both.

Transcripts are kept for 90 days on the free plan and two years on paid plans. A trade argued about after that has nothing left to point at, so export the ticket from the dashboard if a dispute might outlast it. Exporting tickets covers what the file holds.

Where a ticket bot stops

The honest list.

A middleman makes a trade safer. It does not make it allowed: if a game's rules forbid a trade, or selling an item for money, a ticket changes nothing about that, and the transcript is a record of the trade either way.