I thought of a scenario when I was taking my dinner earlier -
What if the seller and the escrow are the same person (but login using 2 different accounts)?
or
What if the buyer and the escrow are the same person (but login using 2 different accounts)?
It is possible, but what reputation will this Escrow have in the community, if he or she scams people? The only way this will work is if this person are busy with a long Con, where they build trust and wait for the whale, and then jump with the mother load.
Most of these people would make enough money from the Escrow service, if they have build enough trust for them not to have to scam people. ^smile^
Escrow services scamming people is not so unheard of and it has actually happened before with big escrow people here on this forum too!
and the solution for that is also easy too when using bitcoin.
you can simply use multi signature bitcoin addresses for example addresses with 2 out of 3 signature that each party has access to only one key and then spending it would require at least two party signing.