Topic: New Escrow Service - mybitsafe.com (Read 3239 times)

Thanks.  Glad you liked it.


I hate to recommend a competitor, but I think BTCrow has much better options if you're sending expensive physical goods, using tracking codes, purchasing insurance, and all that.  They also charge more, which as I already said, I think if fair based on the services they provide.  Performing arbitration when one person says "he sent me a brick" and the other says "no I didn't" introduces cost in both time and money that I'm not able to deal with at the time.  (And to be honest, because of the differences in our services, I don't really think of them as a competitor.  So I guess I don't hate recommending BTCrow in some cases.)


The note field is for your personal use only and is optional.  Some people may not want to disclose the terms of a deal.  I do use randomly generated UUID's for all deals so that a random person can't just bounce around the site looking at deals.  Even still, some people will still want to be vague or keep the info blank.  Other people will want more details documented.  A generic 'note' field seemed like the easiest way to get that working for everyone.

Also keep in mind that because you can enter whatever you want and the seller has no control over the note, it doesn't constitute proof of anything in case of a dispute.


That's been the biggest request feature-wise by far.  I'll hopefully roll out a pop-up calculator this weekend.  I was going to do this last weekend, but ran into browser compatibility problems.

Thanks again for using the site, and thanks for the feedback as well.  It's always appreciated.

I just made a 12BTC deal through your service. All fine! Thank you! :)

Regarding the "allow withdraws back to the buyer" discussion in this thread:
maybe you should add an option to choose between deals that involve "digital goods" and "physical goods".
Where in digital goods trades the buyer won't be able to get his BTC back after a month, simply because the risk that the buyer screws the seller on digital goods is much higher. After the seller sent the digital gift-card/invite-code/whatever the buyer still could say "Haha, you sent me the ukash code, fuck you seller i will not release the coins" but he wouldn't get the coins back either.
On physical goods instead, it should imho be possible for the buyer to get his BTC back. After the buyer sent the BTC to your escrow the seller could pack up a brick and send it to the buyer with a tracking number on the package for "proof" that he sent the package. In this case the buyer could get his money back. If they buyer tries to screw the seller by reclaiming his BTC and keeping a valid good, the seller still would have Name+Address of the buyer to take legal action.

Another point which i recognized during creating a "New Deal" is the "Note" field. There should imho be more information needed, like Name/Nick of the buyer/seller, which shop, what was bought, maybe a screenshot of a forum conversation where the deal was made....something like that.
And a last little thing, in the second step during creating a deal, the site says "Please remember to include our fee when sending coins." that's ok....but people are lazy, don't expect them to sum 2 numbers by hand! Maybe add a field where the buyer simply writes in the real amount of the deal and then your site automatically adds the fee and says "please pay xxx BTC to yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy". To sum 12+0.025 is easy but it could also be something like 1,63846241+0.025 that's too hard for lazy average joe. ;)

Two new features just went out.

• We now explicitly show how many confirmations are needed for a pending deposit to clear.  It still takes 3 confirmations, but now a seller can see exactly how many confirmations are left.
• There is a tracking option.  If you are a seller who has lost the link for a given deal, you can now search by your payment address.

While I was writing this post, I thought it would be nice to show an example link of what a seller sees when bitcoins are in escrow:

https://mybitsafe.com/deals/35d0670d-1ba3-4c82-a209-afdc3753f2eb

In this scenario:

• You're selling $100 dollars worth of Amazon e-gift-cards.
• At the time, the bitcoin price was 13.5, so 7.4 bitcoins were placed into escrow by the buyer.
• You agreed with the buyer to send the cards in $20 increments just in case he flaked out.
• So far one e-card has been sent to the buyer, and the buyer has released payment of 1.48 bitcoins for that card, which would now be in your wallet.
• 5.92 bitcoins remain in escrow.  This money is ready to be released as you continue to send e-gift-cards.

       

I added an FAQ this weekend to answer some of questions I've been getting:

https://mybitsafe.com/faq

How is that fine? If an escrow service is 'fine', it has to work both ways, for both seller and buyer.
, meaning scammer from both side should at least have zero incentive for scamming.
If you actually get the items, but keep lying that you didn't get it yet, then in 30 days, you'll get your money back, and .... Voila... the item for free!

I just reduced the number of confirmations required from 6 to 3, so that funds will clear faster, and deals can be cleared more quickly.

I actually probably will add this feature since it's been requested by a few people.  Or at least allow you to specify an arbitrary release address.  It just seemed like in 95% of the deals I saw, the sellers insisted on 'donate to charity' to protect themselves.

The regular ClearCoin escrow was fine. If I don't get the item, in 30 days the bitcoins are returned to me as a buyer.

Okay, now I understand where you're coming from.  For an all-digital transaction, you're right.  It would be nice to have a service that collected the bitcoins and money from paypal or dwolla, then released both ways.  You should be able to close a deal like that in a matter of minutes.

I was thinking more about the case where someone is shipping me something.  I just ordered a sterling silver bitcoin ring that's going to be shipped from the UK.  And I trust the guy.  I did send him bitcoins.  But for the sake of argument, lets assume he's just been constructing an elaborate hoax.  For something like that, a full escrow service would need to have the package shipped to them, possibly verify the contents, possibly put it in storage, and eventually ship it back out.  That could end up costing as much as the ring itself.

In that case, I think it's useful to offer a service that provides "mutually assured destruction".  For a scammer on either side, it's not worth using the system.  The scammer can't win and they can't profit.  An a**hole could just abuse the system, but luckily that sort of person is much less common than scammers.  Who's going to waste hours setting up deals just to screw someone over, even though they don't benefit from it?

Sure those people are out there, but maybe 1 for every 100 scammers, if that.  This system doesn't protect you from that one person who (with apologies to The Dark Knight) just wants to see the world burn.  But this system keeps you from getting into a deal with those 100 scammers in the first place, since they can't possibly profit.

With the current model, if I wanted to sell 100 BTC for $100 then I would send the BTC to the escrow service. But if the buyer backs out and chooses not to buy from me then I (the seller) just lost 100 coins, and the buyer didn't lose anything. There is no way to get my money back. This is why I like PayPal, I have no idea why everyone hates it so much. It gives the protection against scammers.

A functional model is where the escrow service takes the money from both parties and releases them simulatenously.

Where party A sends 100 BTC to the escrow and then party B sends $100 to the escrow, at which point the money is released to both parties at once to prevent something like the above.

DOH!  Thanks.  Fixed now.

Check your fee schedule page. I think it has some errors.

Or let me ask this question:  What do you do now to protect your bitcoins when buying something from a semi-anonymous person in the forums?

I'm not asking this to be flippant or to try and call you out.  I'm interested in the different methods people use to conduct a safe deal, and interested in improving the website if possible.

This question isn't just directed at Syke, it's directed at anyone who wants to answer.

I'll even throw one out there.  I know BTCRow provides real mediation services, but they're much more expensive.  And in fairness I think that expense is entirely justified considering the amount of work involved in dispute resolution.

For a scamming seller, you're going to lose the coins with or without this service.  The alternative is just to send the coins straight to them, and they can just keep them anyway.  With this service, you can at least make sure they don't profit, removing the advantage and the position of power the scammer is in.  It removes any incentive to scam.  I suppose a seriously deranged person could do it for the 'lulz', but that's not the way an average scammer operates.  They'd try to get you to not use the service.

For a legitimate seller who is forced to back out of a deal, ideally they could escrow an equal amount back to you.  Then you release.  Then they release.  Of course this won't work if the seller doesn't have a bankroll of bitcoins.

I'll try to think of a safe way for the seller to call off the deal, but I'm afraid any system I come up with will be subject to social engineering, MiTMs, etc.

There is a huge advantage for a scamming seller. Once the buyer puts the coins in escrow, if the seller backs out, the only way for the buyer to get their coins back is to release them to the seller. This gives the seller the coins without having sent any item. As a buyer I would never use this service.

That's not entirely true as a person loses trust and gains nothing by not getting the coins. It would be perfect to do on someone you absolutely hate, but other than that, what would be the point? What's your solution? I've used ClearCoin in the past, and I wouldn't do Bitcoin transactions, especially larger ones, without some sort of protection.

But if the buyer can recover their money, the seller can get ripped off.  See all the paypal chargebacks that have been going on.  The same thing could happen, but in reverse.  Buyer gets his bitcoins back, and keeps the dwolla money.

I realize the solution isn't perfect.  But it keeps a buyer and seller on equal footing, with neither having an advantage.  The worst case scenario is a no-win situation.  Which sucks.  But it's better than letting the scammer win.  And at the same time, a total sociopath could refuse to release funds even though it doesn't benefit them in any way, shape, or form.

Anyway, it's modeled (basically) off of the now-defunct clearcoin site.  And that site was reasonably popular in spite of the same weakness.

Of course it's not for everyone.  And it won't protect you from someone who just gives off a bad vibe.  But it provides a reasonable compromise in situations where you have no reason to doubt your counter-party's sincerity, but still don't have any real-life information about them such as their reputation or identity.

This is pointless. If the seller never sends the item then the buyer can't get their money back.

The buyer will lose money, the seller will lose nothing.

Absolutely a legitimate service. I just made a transaction with them and everything went very smoothly. kgo is certainly a trustworthy member of the Bitcoin community.

Here's my otc rating:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=kgo&sign=ANY&type=RECV

If there's anything else I can do to assure you I'm trustworthy, please let me know.

If anyone here who I've done business with would like to vouch for me, I'd appreciate it.