Quote from: jonald_fyookball on September 14, 2015, 01:23:45 PM

Quote from: Quickseller on September 14, 2015, 07:31:46 AM

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on September 13, 2015, 02:05:21 PM

Since I don't think you are stupid, I can only conclude you're unable to stop yourself from trying to rationalize your behavior and you're unwilling to just admit you're not right.

Let me give you an analogy and you can try to explain how your situation is any different.

Alice owns a small private airplane and hires Bob, an airplane engine mechanic to perform maintenance.
Afterward, Alice decides it would be prudent to have a second mechanic just double check the engine. She hired Charlie, but it's really Bob who has a disguise and a fake mustache.

Alice flies her plane, it works fine, no one gets hurt. Bob points to this fact to rationalize his behavior.
But his friend David is giving him flak for the deception, so Bob decides not to cash the second check made to Charlie. Now he really feels good because no one got hurt and he never double charged Alice.

But what he's missing is that he deceived Alice, deprived her of the benefit of lower risk, and justified it all by pointing that he had done the job correctly. Using insanely twisted logic, he says: "well if I didn't know what I was doing, the plane would have gone down, but that would have happened the same if she didn't hire a second mechanic to double check, or if I did the checking myself."

so, how is what you did any different than "Bob"?

There are several differences.

First, in your situation in the event that Bob had made a mistake, the damage would be irreversible. Lives would be lost, and people cannot be "unkilled", once those on board the airplane are dead, that is the end of their lives, period. On the other hand, if the escrow makes a mistake (eg they send to the incorrect address, they release escrow to a party that he should not have released to and later additional information is discovered to have been available to the escrow that would reveal he should have released to the other party, ect), then the escrow will need to cover the losses out of his own pocket. The escrow making a mistake is something that can be fixed.

Secondly your example lacks the checks and balances of the other trading partner. The plane will takeoff only with the two signatures from Bob. When escrowing your own deal, you will need the authorization of the person you are dealing with to send funds to yourself. Granted there is the potential for a conflict of interest in this case, however it is my policy, (and although this clause was not included in the specific agreements in question, it is written in other templates, and such a policy would have been enforced) that if it is not abundantly clear which side to take in a dispute then a scam accusation should be opened so the community can help moderate the dispute, this is not unlike what happened here but with an actual escrow involved. A similar point is that it is very rare for there to be any kind of dispute when dealing with escrow. Both when discussing deals I have been a direct party to and deals that I have escrowed, there really have not been any disputes that have not been extremely clearcut from the very beginning. I understand that many people are saying that there is no neutral third party, however I am really not aware of any situations where, based on the evidence available that it was anything but clearcut as to which party was in the right.

Thirdly, in your example Alice wants to hire a second mechanic to check behind Bob. However in the situations that I was involved in, Alice would have gladly asked Bob to both check the first time and the second time, and would have paid a premium for doing so.

My fourth and what I believe to be my strongest point is a slightly changed scenario. Instead of Alice only owning a single airplane, she owns an airline, and there is another employee, Zach. Although there is no policy or rule against wearing disguises, and although there is no policy explicitly allowing this practice, Zach will, on multiple occasions wear a disguise and be seen by many others that work for the airline. This fact is even brought up multiple times during company meetings and no one is critical of the practice. Some may miss this point, but Bob sees that this is happening out in the open and has no reason to believe anyone would be critical of of this behavior. As a result, Bob does what is described in your post after seeing Zach doing the exact same thing without consequence.

With the above being said, I have my right to my own opinion just like you have your right to your opinion. You have the right to believe that escrowing for ones self is wrong just like I have the right to have an opinion that there is no issue with this.

With that being said, I absolutely would not escrow for myself in the future without giving the proper disclosure that this is a possibility. It is clear that some are out to get blood and will stop at nothing to get it, and will use this as a way to extract such blood.

If I were to find out that I was trading with someone who was using themselves as escrow then I would not be in any way upset, nor would I make any attempt to call them out on the issue.

If someone were to ask my opinion about escrowing for ones self then I would tell them there is a great risk that some may go after blood if this is revealed, but that I do not have any personal issue with it, and that they should make a disclosure that it is possible the escrow is wearing more then one hat.

It really is not going to be difficult to hide the fact that an account is your alt, even from the administration (at least in theory). If the community is going to "outlaw" the practice of escrowing for your own trades then people are going to assume that the escrow is not the same person as the person you are dealing with, however if there are additional risks to this practice as you claim, then people will make no effort into protecting themselves from these risks.

I don't think these are good arguments but not suprised you've spun
something creative to justify yourself.

Briefly:

#1) No the damage wouldn't be irreversible if there was a contractual
dispute and the escrower/trader didn't change their mind about how
to handle it. You're also using an "ends justify the means" philosophy
where its ok to be deceive people for your own convenience as long as
no one gets hurt. Same thing as I said in the example.

#2) Non sensical. The person holding the money controls the risk.

#3) No. If Alice would have "gladly asked Bob to check both the first and second time", then there's no need to be a secret escrow.

#4) You are justifying based on how critical others are of the practice.

Yet, the community clearly has spoken:

You can have your own opinion about it, but almost everyone here
agrees you're wrong...and I think what you've posted here just
shows you'll go to any length to create mental gymanistics to
rationalize that opinion.

3) Privacy. How quickly do you think someone like TheGambler would create and/or buy an account to respond to a [WTB] thread created by someone who had stopped him from being able to steal additional money from others multiple times? How many trolls have posted on Dogie's [WTS] threads about his VAT practices (that I have no reason to believe is illegal in anyway)? The identity of the person doing the maintenance of the airplane would be public in both cases so your scenario is not comparable.

4) There are no rules about how trades are conducted. To be critical of one person for a certain type of activity that echoes the business practices of another that are done out in the open is ridiculous. To do so is similar to retroactively changing the law and then charge them with a crime after doing something that was previously not against the law.

2) The escrow could just as well run away with the money in either scenario. There is no need to scam someone by having a dispute in a trade if they are going to scam.

1) The potential damage is significantly different from the two scenarios. No one is going to die or come close to it if a few hundred or a few thousand dollars is stolen from them. I am not saying that scamming is okay because it is not, but the potential for damage is different. If there is evidence that the escrow made a bad decision but does not cover the losses then he is a scammer. Again the escrow might as well run away with the money.

Forum polls are worthless. That thread only has most likely ~7-10 people posting the same opinion from ~50 accounts.

Do you seriously think the reaction would be the same if someone who had not put so much effort into preventing theft by users on the forum? There was even someone who had hacked an account and used that account to be critical of me on the other thread (instead of trying to scam someone with the stolen account).