Topic: Bitcointalk Escrows - Trade Safely! - page 27. (Read 108569 times)

The problem with this is that most of the time, it is not an open and shut case that an escrow is pulling an exit scam (as is the case with master-p). One example of a not clear case of an escrow scamming would be when funds held in escrow are lost and the escrow agent needs some time to come up with the funds to reimburse the parties he was providing escrow for. Another example of a not clear case of scamming would be when an escrow makes a decision in a dispute that someone (or a group of people, or someone with a number of accounts, or a group of people with a number of accounts) who is very good at making a lot of noise does not agree with, and may or may not have been made in bad faith.

re: making it possible to find the identity of an escrow agent -- for the most part it would be trivial to provide a fake identity to those that ask, especially if an identity never needs to be verified in person, so providing an identity would probably, in many scenarios give a false sense of security when zero additional security results. I also believe that Mark  (however you spell his last name) of MtGox's identity was publicly known, but this did not stop him from embezzling large amounts of customer funds (this ignores the fact that he lost 800k BTC of customer money due to security breaches), and I believe that maidak's identity was public prior to him scamming for thousands of dollars. On the other hand, the identity of the likes of John K., OgNasty, and Tomatocage is far from public, and I cannot even say with certainty that anyone knows all of their identities.

I would say that a good way to reduce risk when dealing with an escrow would be to ensure the escrow is on solid financial footing (if they have plenty of money of their own, they will be less likely to run away with others' money), and to monitor the amount of money they are holding on behalf of others and avoid using them if this amount is spiking over a very short period of time. OgNasty allows people to see (for the most part) how much BTC he is holding on behalf of others by only (for the most part) having people send BTC to his "signature" address, and while this is a viable option, other options would include making all escrow addresses public by making the xpubkey of their escrow wallet public, and those using an escrow's services would only send BTC to an address that is both PGP signed by the escrow and can be linked to a particular xpubkey belonging to the escrow.

That's why I have the highest fee and a minimum. When I get an escrow contract, either I was the last one available, or ... maybe they trust me. I dunno. I'm only getting a few now.

Edit: And I force people to take a few hours or even a day to confirm the trades (online) or shipping times (if they mail stuff.)

I would't blame you at all. I've been approached by several people wanting me to escrow a deal and have declined. Its just not worth the possible hastle in my opinion.

Most trades are for -1BTC and at 1% or possibly 2% its just not worth the time.

Personally I can earn more in a few minutes work with my regular job.

Sad to say but escrow isn't worth the time and possible trouble to most people.

Which makes me wonder why master-p was offering 0% or free escrow service? Trust and possible future scam potential possibly?

Agreed...
Thinking I am probably better off just not bothering to escrow. I do not make much doing it and it is always time consuming.

I dont know either, its a tricky one.

Well, I doubt a few of the escrows would want to provide their info and rightfully so. I really do not know what the best solution is as they all have their issues.

Yes thats a good idea. Perhaps if the top people on the forum obtained verified recommended escrows personal information that would reduce the likelihood of them pulling off a scam because a dox would be an extremely good deterrent.

Perhaps this is where theymos, BadBear etc. could provide the assurance. As an added security perhaps escrows should deposit say 25 or 50BTC with these people as security also. Escroes would need to charge a decent fee though to justify their time and held security.

Tbh this subject feels uncomfortable for me because I trusted master-p even though I didnt have any escrow dealings with him. I also trust you Blazed, OgNasty, Mitchell and all the others on the trusted escrow list: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcointalk-escrows-trade-safely-855778

Apart from master-p obviously until the recent accusations are resolved.

Danny Brewster, Mark Karpeles, etc were vetted and public and still stole everything.

I am starting to think that escrows should be vetted (I know JohnK used to handle that back a few years ago). Maybe have an admin or someone extremely trusted verify identities?

Bitrated can be scammed if I pretend to be one of the parties, then I'll have 2 of 3. Or I collude with a party.

Though as someone else said, I'm not interested in looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. I have enough issues of my own than bitcoiners trying to kill me. Also I do it for the community, honesty is key.

Danny hamilton swears I'll scam. I don't know why. The only reason I'd ever disappear is if I died. Also, if I seem online all the time, it's because my browser is on auto refresh. So I'll be online until the computer dies long after I'm dead. Bitrated does protect against my death however.

I value someone's 0.01 as much as 10k. It's not mine and I don't touch it.

As franky1 is well known for frequently saying:


If you give your bitcoins to an escrow provider, the escrow provider should first be willing and able to provide you with enough information to prove their identify and to visit them if necessary.

When I provided escrow services, I always provided enough information to identify and find me.  Surprisingly, I was never asked to prove that identity, but would have been willing to if I was asked.

If people value such a service, then they'll be willing to pay appropriately for it. If they're willing to pay appropriately, then there will be trustworthy people that are willing to provide such a service in exchange for an opportunity to be rewarded for their trustworthiness.  Unfortunately, I found when I was offering the service that it wasn't very valued by most users.  As such, the few pennies a month that I made in tips wasn't enough to justify the amount of time and effort that I was putting in to securing funds and facilitating agreements.

What a mess this has made with Master-P pulling this crap. Before this issue escrows worked pretty well here and now I think users will try to not use escrow as much. I really hope people do not get scammed due to this shitstorm...

Considering the link leads you to his profile, on which you can clearly see all the negs he has been given, I'd say anyone dumb enough to get scammed further deserves..... you know the rest.

In my opinion , Escrow list should be made by the moderators or admin (someone who is really active) because Marcotheminer is without internet connection and we need Master-P to get removed so ... yeah this may even allow him to scam more people in the meanwhile .

I wans't aware of such existing escrow service, thanks for further explaining it out. Are there any cases or risks that multisig escrow may not work? Maybe it would be good to raise awareness for multisig escrow, especially after the recent incident, to prevent this from happening next time. It seems a little complicated to me, or is this the reason why users don't use this? Would be better multisig escrows were used instead.

This is called multisignature trancactions: buyer commits money into a 2-of-3 transaction with the seller and a third-party arbitrator. If transaction goes smoothly, then both buyer and seller sign the transaction to forward the money to the seller. If something goes wrong, they can sign a transaction to refund the buyer. If they cannot agree, they both appeal to the third-party who will arbitrate and provide a second signature to the party that it deems deserves it. This is very safe and I prefer to use such transactions instead of third party escrow when the seller doesn't mind.

My bitrated escrows can't be stolen

They already have those multi-sig escrow things. Personally, I believe the ones listed (and I used to be one of the five until I got "demoted" to the other list) are all trust worthy. Each of us have done probably thousands of bitcoins, back when the value of each BTC was between $200 USD to $900 USD.

There are some escrow individuals who won't tarnish their reputation or integrity no matter how much BTC you give them. That, and I wouldn't want to be looking over my shoulder over some "small" value someone else thinks I scammed out of them, even though I am trained to be always looking over my shoulder. hehe.

Yeah, but if you contact reputable sites like these, chances are the fees gonna be way higher than usual. If possible, why not create an escrow program where both parties 'sign' and send the item to the program to keep, and once it is verified, the transaction is complete and the program sends to the other person.

No escrow needed, and maybe there could be a small charge for the program. Hint to all programmers out there.. *hint hint*

You should probably remove Master-p off the list because his account is proven to be sold.