Hahaha I am not gonna lie if i was gonna sell a scam item it wouldn't be a dropped macbook pro, with an expanded battery.
Have i flat out refused a escrow? no. Do i think its a bit extreme and something i personally am not to comfortable with? Yes. Plus no one has made an official offer, if i saw something was in writing and they had a perfect heatware and ebay yes i would highly consider it.
I welcome you to go Google my username, i am no fly by night user. Not to mention i am a fairly old member, just happen to be a lurker instead of active posting.
Like i said i only considered bitcoins after hardforums failed. Original forum post there:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1686255Never expected such backlash to common sense.
Please do not misunderstand -- this wasn't backlash, nor was I accusing you of anything.
The fact is that rep on ebay and other sites can be bought (yes, people do this regularly) and there have also been problems with old and abandoned forum accounts being hacked and used months later by scammers.
It's extremely unfortunate that the eye of skepticism is upon every newcomer here (yes, I know you said you're not new, but we don't recognize you), especially when we need more and more entrepreneurs to help the economy grow.
Some people go to great lengths on here to scam for the value of a macbook pro. Just search this forum for all the I-Pad scams...they're endless.
While on one hand it's unfortunate that you are bearing the burden of skepticism, it's more unfortunate when the benefit of the doubt is given, as it has been repeatedly in the past (seriously, I don't think anybody really wants to call someone out for a potential scam when there is no proof), only to watch honest buyers get scammed regularly. A lot of people who are scammed are newcomers and that can turn them off to Bitcoin entirely.
From what I know, BinaryMage is correct that Kluge has offered to do escrow for free in the past, and he is a reputable member. Once you get a successful transaction or two under your belt, then you shouldn't have to worry about posts like these.