Escrow.com - New Loophole?
April 28th, 2008I use Escrow.com for most of my larger transactions. I like to deal with a company I can get a hold of during business hours on the phone. Ive never really had an issue with any transactions until today. I had pushed a domain name to a customer last week, and she had yet to acknowledge recieving the domain name to Escrow. This despite several emails over the past few days encouraing her. I contacted Escrow.com to let them know the buyer had received the domain, but hasn’t responded to me or escrow.
Within about an hour, I recieve an email addressed to both parties stating the following:
“The Seller has submitted the transfer for the domain in this transaction. The registrar now shows your information as registrant, therefore your inspection period has been started. The current registrant information is below.”
I was surprised, although they acted in my favor, I started to consider some of the possibilities. What if the domain name was never transfered and I just temporarily updated the whois information? After receiving my funds I then go back and return the whois to myself. I would have prefered escrow simply called the buyer to verify, and was actually a bit stunned they took this path.
Justin
I’ve purchased a few domains in the past and am working on purchasing another right now. I have asked myself the same question. It seems like it would be easy for either the buyer or the seller to scam the system by simply providing incorrect whois data.
Comment by Brandon — April 28, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
It is a possibility..
In that case they can contact the registrar to confirm if the domain was really transfered/pushed into the seller’s account.
Comment by Michael — April 28, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
That’s why there is an inspection period for the buyer to dispute this. My issue would be if the domain was registered privately and the buyer claimed to have not received the domain name.
Comment by Elliot Silver — April 28, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
I don’t think it’s a “new” loophole. It’s always been like that hasn’t it?
Comment by John Motson — April 28, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Interesting post - great point
Comment by damir — April 28, 2008 @ 4:21 pm
I used escrow.com for the first time recently. I was worried when the buyer didn’t immediately acknowledge receipt of the domain. I was used to escrow services like Sedo where you push the name into sedo’s acct at the respective registrar and they in turn push it to the buyer. I think I’ll go with Moniker next time, considering all of my domains are registered there, so things should go a lot more smoothly (with a lot more peace of mind).
Comment by Jorge — April 30, 2008 @ 3:13 pm