What do you have to do to escrow a deal, just hold the funds until the counterparty says it's OK to release them? Is it that much of a pain in the ass to be one?
I'd say an escrow has to ensure both involved parties are safe
no matter what, and the escrow has to
assume one of them is a scammer while the other is a n00b. Unfortunately, even paying an escrow $500 can't guarantee that. See
Best practices for Bitcointalk escrow providers.
This is what I would have expected:
- Buyer and seller provide payment and shipping details to escrow.
- If all agree on all terms, buyer pays escrow and seller sends product to escrow.
- Escrow verifies product.
- Escrow releases product and payment only if everything is okay.
In reality, Bitcointalk escrow often offers false security, and can't guarantee safety of funds in all possible scenarios. All goes well as long as all involved parties are honest, but you don't need an escrow for that.
I've seen several (quite sophisticated) attempts in which the false security of an escrow is used to scam someone.
Hope this isn't too far off topic, but this is a thread about escrowing: Do escrows get a fee or a tip for their services usually?
I think it's typically 1% ($500 in the above case). I think that's a lot of money for very little work. It would totally be worth it if real security was offered including a refund for messing up, but clearly that's not the case.
Back to the bL4nkcode case, I'd say he should have applied this:
I'd say: "Rule One: Never change the deal." applies (
quote taken from The Transporter movie). If anything changes, a good default would be to delay the release of escrowed funds quite a bit.
Maybe a better solution would have been to refund ~ if anything changes. ~ But that requires strict rules from the escrow, known upfront, which wasn't the case here.