posted on March 11, 2001 06:55:51 PM
My first request from a winning bidder to use i-escrow. What are your experiences with the service? They've offered to pay for the service -- do they have the opportunity to review the merchandise prior to "releasing" their payment to me or are both payment and property released simaltanously to protect the seller from buyers backing out or worse (removing authentic stones and replacing them with fakes.)
posted on March 12, 2001 05:04:06 AMmlevin: My one and only i-escrow deal went smoothly. However.....
They hold payment for (I think) 3 days after the buyer receives the item (you have to send delivery confirmation and i-escrow tracks it) or until the buyer authorizes them to release payment. As far as I could tell, there is nothing to protect the seller. For those reasons, I dedided I would never do it again.
posted on March 12, 2001 07:58:56 AM
My one experience with Iescrow went badly. Iescrow works great if both parties are honest, but if both parties are honest, who needs Iescrow? My seller sent me 100 cdrs (write once) when we had agreed to 100 cdrws. Iescrow told me that I had to return them at my expense (over $20 in shipping) and I would get back a refund of the purchase price but not the shipping. In short, I would lose over $40 due to the seller's mistake. The seller emailed me that if I kept them, he would discount $20. I told him that I didnt need them but I would keep half and return half and he agreed to refund half the original price plus $10. I sent his emails to Iescrow and expected them to adjust the price. They told me that unless the seller logged in to Iescrow and adjusted the deal, I would be forced to pay the full price for 100 cdrws even though the seller admitted to receiving half. The seller eventually adjusted the price to half the original cost (without the $10 discount we had agreed to) and I reluctantly paid it to get this nasty thing over with. I felt that Iescrow and the seller pressured me into accepting a raw deal and that I had been given no protection. So I didn't see any advantage to using Iescrow and I wouldnt recommend it. You're paying them a fee for basically doing nothing but telling you to work it our yourself.
posted on March 12, 2001 02:29:34 PM
I'm using eBay's TradeEnable service now. It's not too bad. Buyer pays the costs. Buyer pays TradeEnable first, then I ship the merch. Buyer has three days to inspect the goods (without opening the package); then buyer notifies TradeEnable they are satisfied, and TradeEnable releases the money to me. If the buyer returns the item, TradeEnable automatically charges the buyer. It's pretty safe for both parties.
(edited to clarify: I'm sending a new, sealed software program to the buyer. The buyer isn't allowed to open the software package.)
posted on March 14, 2001 08:40:38 AM
Esrow might be safer than sending a money order to a post office box. Other than that,
I dont understand how escrow is any safer than using Paypal or any other form of payment. If the seller is a crook and sends an empty box or something that is broken, the buyer complains, the seller denies it, how does it get solved? Or the seller sends the right thing but the buyer is a crook and claims it is wrong, or sends back and empty box and claims it was returned, how does that get solved? The bottom line is unless both parties are honest, escrow wont really work. And if both parties are honest, then why use escrow?
