I have an announcement to make. Lately the amount of time i have to put into escrow is pretty high. And it seems this time flows nearly all in escrow deals related to bitcointalk forum accounts. Either account sales or me taking accounts into escrow. It simply is very time consuming to explain the safety related things to the buyer, to explain what is everything and to explain everything related to signatures. On top all the checks an escrow should do to ensure an account is safe.
The amount of time i use for that became simply too high lately. And the risk buyers and sellers avoid for accounts are relatively thin. The accounts aren't worth much. So it's not much value i can provide but a lot of time goes down with that.
So from now on i will drop escrowing accounts. The same goes for my account selling service.
I still will do some accounts where i promised to do so for some other reason but generally i would like to not take account related escrows anymore now. :)
So since i will stop doing that i thought maybe for other escrows, that want to become establishes as account escrowers, my templates for that topic might be interesting.
Here is the template i use for account selling service. You can charge 10%, maybe try 20%, since the accounts aren't worth so much.
That's what i use for the auction thread:
Account Sale Number #######Number######
In my role as escrow i was asked to act as a seller and sell an account as a service including creating the sales thread. I agreed to do this and i intend to do it as perfectly as possible. :P
[b]Description:[/b]
For sale is a bitcointalk.org forum account. ##########Including private key for a posted bitcoin address. #########And including a membership in a closed (no new members) signature campaign.
For sale are TWO bitcointalk.org forum accounts. Including private key for a posted bitcoin address that was posted 2 months ago.
You CAN bid on both accounts. But you can bid on each account separately too. More about that in the bid settings.
#########It's a money making business too since you can earn the minimum bid in one week already when you bought this account and post quality posts. Quick turnaround for your investment.
#########If you want to join another signature campaign, that is not full already, then this would be no problem with the post quality too.
The details for both accounts are practically the same. When they differ somewhere then i added that info at that place.
[b]First some technical details:[/b]
[list]
[li]Position: #########[/li]
[li]Potential Position: #########[/li]
[li]Activity: around #########[/li]
[li]Potential Activity: around #########[/li]
[li]Posts: around #########[/li]
[li]Registered: #########Late #########[/li]
[/list]
[b]Reputation:[/b]
#########
[list]
[li]No trust rating at all, no negative, no untrusted feedback.[/li]
[li]No scam accusations that i found.[/li]
[li]No open loans that i found.[/li]
[li]No campaign bans that i found.[/li]
[li]No forum bans that i could have found.[/li]
[li]I did not find the account involved in anything controversial.[/li]
[li]Signed message stating the seller sold to the buyer. The private key of the address that the message was signed with is sold too. You can create your own verifications then. As if you are the original owner.[/li]
[/list]
[b]Quality:[/b]
#########
[list]
[li]The account has a postquality of grade A to A+. Posts are long and constructive. The english is fine. The account posted in turkish subforum. Most posts are done in Bitcoin Discussion Subforum.[/li]
[li]The account is already in a good (for that forum position) signature campaign that cant be joined anymore because its full.[/li]
[li]Avatar is possible[/li]
[li]Signed message that proofs the ownership of buyer.[/li]
[li]Of course, because you get the private key for the address, you dont need to change the signature campaign address since the campaign is using the same address. Obviously that is up to you since it would be not only you who can access funds in that address.[/li]
[/list]
[b]Red Trust Prevention[/b]
#########
Since you know, some members give sold accounts negative once they know it was sold. In order to protect the buyer i did some precautions:
[list]
[li]I negotiated with the seller that he doesnt change the password and i dont change the password either. The buyer can take up to 4 weeks to change the password. This prevents the red message, stating that the password was changed, that appears in trust area AND in security log of the forum. So its very hard to find out which account was sold. I can either hold the funds until buyer changes the password, or, since the buyer got the private key, he can always proof that he owns the account.[/li]
[li]I wont tell the account name to interested buyers nor will i show the account to anyone but the buyer that has paid the price for the account at the end. I asked the seller to do the same too.[/li]
[/list]
[b]Who shouldnt bid?[/b]
#########
No Users with red trust.
Anyone who cant write english properly or doesnt know what it means to post constructive posts. No spammers obviously too. It simply would be a waste to burn that account with that technique.
[b]Starting bid:[/b]
0.10 [btc] for both accounts
0.05 [btc] for a single account
Minimum Bid Increment: 0.01 [btc]
Everyone bidding with an account less than a member has to show me a signed message with an address holding at least the amount he bid. I can help with how this is done.
[b]Buy it now:[/b]
0.25 [btc] for both accounts
0.12 [btc] for a single account
At the end of the auction the bids for single accounts are summarized. When this bid is higher than the highest bid for all accounts then the bidders on the single accounts win. When the bidders bid, bidding on both accounts is higher then he gets the accounts.
[b]How to bid:[/b]
If you want both accounts then you only need to place your bid. If you want account 1 or account 2 then specify that with your bid.
[b]End date and time:[/b]
The Auction ends ######### UTC.
But auction extends #########2 days after the last bet was done. If in #########48 hours no new bid comes in then the last bid wins. Minimum Bid Increment will prevent misuse.
Buy it now ends the auction instantly when the buyer paid.
[b]Payment methods accepted:[/b]
Bitcoin
[b]My auction service:[/b]
Ask me for details when you want to use my selling service. :)
[/quote]
You can adjust the template for your needs and of course you need to go through it for each trade. Check all details, delete sentences and add all data. Ask all missing details then from the seller. The ### are either placeholder for details you need to fill or an attention mark for things you have to change before posting.
Besides that i only have this account related text that i use for taking accounts into escrow as collateral:
Yes, i can. But you need to provide three things:
* A contact possibility for when i have your account. Another forum account or an email so that no one can be your impostor.
* A signed message from an old posted address from an unedited post to proof that you really are the owner of the account.
* After that's done i need your login details and i secure the account.
Generally, when you take forum accounts into escrow the most important thing is signatures of posted addresses in old unedited posts. The signaturs need to be valid and state date, purpose and usernames.
The other needed things to check can be seen from the template. Make yourself a list to check for.
When you need to check the potential activity then you can use this bot for free: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1148181.new#new
I know these templates don't really provide much value besides that all the details needed have flown into it. Maybe one or more escrows can find it useful. :)
Only for reference, when someone wants to offer an account selling service, or maybe you adapt and you offer a selling service generally, then it's often helpful to see how others did it and adapt form that.
So now i wanted to add two threads where i used the template and sold accounts:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1157988.new#new
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1147780.new#new
A selling service is not a bad idea. There are enough bitcoiners with WAY too few time that would happily give away a share when an established sales service exist. I think ebay sales agents get 15% or so. Maybe that's a good base for negotiations. Of course expensive items might need a lower fee.
Anyway, feel free to copy and show that you are a honest member of the community. :)