I've always thought it was good practice to find a trusted and vetted middle person to help with escrow during any transactions. protects the buyer and seller.
If you are not familar with the counterparty, it is better to use a good escrow. There are too many scammers out there.
counterparty not escrow
only wallet and can develop coin and use token counterparty in xcp counterwallet io
so is scamer not counterparty but person dev in use counterparty technology