Bitcoin Forum

Ok, The Escrow League is kinda lame, but this is what I was thinking;

In the process of trying to do business with new members on the forum that may or may not be scammers, those that say "we'll work something out" and then when asked to choose someone trusted to escrow the bitcoins either ask half now half later (what could ever go wrong with this plan?) or appoint another new and unknown member as their trusted counterpart, which for all we know might be the same person. you know who you are, I've come to the conclusion that it's really not fair to ask new members to trust old, known members because, well, the new members don't know them.

It was quite simple back in the days, there were a few very active members that put that extra effort and became known and trusted. Many are still around, so here's my idea... Lets use a thread (this thread?) to state who we trust, and those that get appointed can say if they would be willing to serve as middleman in these potentially shady deals.

There is nothing wrong with the existing escrow services, except I don't know/trust those behind them, so it's square one all over again.

Those that would accept to act as escrow would get a fee, say 0.1%, min 0.1 max 1.0, or something of the kind.

Finally a simple set of conflict resolution rules need to be set... btcs are sent to escrow, and if either seller fails to deliver or buyer says they did, a new thread is opened for proof gathering, so sellers show the proof of having shipped stuff, sellers show proof that what they got isn't what they requested. All members of this 'league' vote and majority wins, either buyer or seller take the coins, no discussions or appeals. If resolution is needed then maybe an extra fee is in order?

Ok, next post I'll put forward some names of those I'd like to see in this league. If your name appears and you don't want it there, or if someone I put there has done you wrong, speak up and it goes away.

Or if you think I'm full of it, I can be convinced to shut up, but this community has done some great things, and scammers are having way too much bandwidth on this forum.

Potential members of the league:

davout
Garrett Burgwardt
bencoder
davidonpda
FreeMoney
Gavin Andresen
jgarzik
mndrix
nanotube
noagendamarket

Just to name a few. Additions or removals, just speak your peace.

[edit] Added by self appointment
Garrett Burgwardt (fees 0.5%)
davout (fees 0.25%)
shakaru (fees 0.0%)
BiddingPond.com (fees 4.0%)
payb.tc (fees 1.0% + 0.01 BTC on http://thrucoin.com)

[edit] Added by request
mndrix
nextshare

[edit] removed by request:
The Madhatter

I'd be more for setting up some kind of web-based escrow service BACKED by human intelligence. Let there be some kind of automated system that covers all undisputed transactions but let humans settle all disputes. Your list is pretty decent so far, and though I don't have much in the way of free time I'm willing to spend some of that free time helping wherever I can. Let me know what becomes of this.

I'm totally with you, that's also what I'd like to see. But the simple truth is I don't have the time or the energy to code that, particularly not in these hacker infested days.

If ClearCoin was still around I wouldn't even consider this. Oh, and thanks!

I could probably hack something together. I doubt my code would be hacker-proof either but I've at least got enough knowledge / skill to put it out there and let people pentest the hell out of it and i can fix whatever they find :)

I'm crazy busy with work and school right now but I'll see if I can find the time.

I get that people want automated escrows, but those exist already. Again, either I trust the one doing it or I'll have to review the code. Even then I need to trust the ISP, server admin, etc.

What I'm proposing here isn't trying to mitigate the need for a full blown, trusted, secure escrow service, but rather allow for an alternate solution while such a service gets established. And frankly, I like the idea of a community operated / scrutinized escrow, but the software layer just gets in the way right now.

Of course if you do implement the service and open the code then "The League" can find among its ranks a sysadmin, grab a server and run that code ;)

i'm in for the ruleset discussion
thread per dispute
publishing escrow status changes updates
escrow request results in a escrow address with a known established person, sending btc to such middleman is proof of payment
bitcoins release upon acceptance of service/good

disputes for goods
- proof of sending vs claim of not receiving (time frame in days)
- pictures & description of traded item (no comment)

extra work for middleman - send address, wait, release coins or wait dispute outcome

bootstrapping the web of trust / joining data?

umm... yeah... remove madhatter from your list.

I was hoping for a little more detail regarding the removals, but given your sig and the fact you are a moderator here, I'll assume it isn't just a personal thing ;) Thanks!

The MadHatter has been 'flakey' at best recently.

And I'll throw my hat into the ring with a .5% fee, though it seems like you have a bunch of good people already.

-Garrett

We think he was in league with mybitcoin aswell.

Well, all the times I interacted with him he felt very trustworthy, though truth be told it was a long time ago.

Your name will be added to the list, thank you! Just a note that all is open to discussion and I'm not taking the lead on anything (I only leaded this thread because I *need* such a service myself) but my idea is to have a known fee structure and everyone just doing that. Would you be ok with the min and max fees or 0.1 and 1.0?

Also, I believe we each see risk in different ways, so maybe each member of "The League" puts forward a maximum amount they are comfortable processing?

You can add my name if you want, I'll take a .25% fee.

At some point Bitcoin-Central.net will also have an escrow feature, but god knows days are only 24h long :)

I can hardly wait for that! That would kill "The League" for sure ;)

And thanks for stepping forward.

Hah yeah, there are more features that I want to implement than hair on my head, and god knows I'm not very aerodynamic :)

Creating a "League" for escrow services is redundant imo. I mean, that'd be like suggesting every group that makes up the merchant list to go league. What really needs to be done is to take all the good merchants out there and place them on a site so folks know who to trust. Don't mention this web of trust thing that was started because that comes off as a private gentleman's club then a public place. Just my 2 cents.

A league can be great only to hold bitcoins in different wallet, exactly what my escrow service do btw.

The problem with the vote is that people could be corrupted and or make bad judgment according to a transaction. The only thing an escrow could rely on is proof. Proof of delivery, Proof of receipt, Proof of service completion etc.

Third party (escrow or league) should not never been able to buy word from a party instead of another without relying on proof, so that mean that the league is useless because if everyone rely on proof, all league will vote for the same person.

IMO This could maybe only be useful to verify proof or hold bitcoins in different wallet.

@BTCrow: your service is exactly what I would like to have, only done by someone I already trust (*wink* davout). This does not mean I distrust you or your service in any way, and with time I'll probably use it consistently, but right now, with all the scandals and people running away with fat wallet.dat's full of other people's coins, I tend to trust only the "family".

So, I'm not trying to get a justice league going, or an exclusive gentleman's club or anything. I just want a few of the older and trusted forum members to accept the escrow job temporarily, and I want everyone to know about that and who they are, so I don't get fooled by incomplete information (like regarding madhatter, I would trust him with no reserves).

This *is* redundant, and will become unneeded with time. This is not a business model, rather a volunteer escrow service to fill in a need I, selfishly, need.

As such, and while I understand there are many faults and potential pitfalls to this plan, I still think it is quite useful at least for now.

If you're going to go for a "trusted" escrow service I don't see the need to a "League" imo.
To everyone their own I s'pose.

Because not everyone will trust the existing services, and I don't know of one I'll trust with anything more that pocket money right now.

I thought that was clear? Maybe I worded things incorrectly...

I completely understand what you mean, I think I started my escrow service in the worse time with all those scandals, The thing I'm working out is a just a way of my service getting trusted in order people just stop being scammed.

It will take the time it will take I don't mind, I strongly believe in bitcoins whatever speculation or news said and I want to be a part of it. That's why I had implemented marketing tactics in order to gain more rep from people by giving 20% for any (positive or negative) feedback for valid transaction. There's already plenty of people using my escrow and I only get good comment for the moment. As I said it's a start and I really appreciate doing business this way.

I also made a request for google business center in order to have my business listed on google LBC, but the only reason why I didn't put it in place in order to get more trust is because for the moment I don't have an office space exclusively for BTCrow, and I fear that people come directly at my house for whatever reason or try to infiltrate to steal bitcoins in our protected wallets. My main goal is to protect my familly and bitcoins from my precious and valuable customers. That's why I'm patient and waiting to rep build by itself while doing great job (I think) for the community.

In other words once you'll think that I'll gain enough rep I could be interested as well to brainstorm some ideas and contribute myself in order to have the safest way to do bitcoin transactions.

There is one way you can ease yourself into getting paranoid people (like myself) to test your services and leverage the trust already won by members of this forum, and that is to allow people to use btcrow but have people from the list of potential league members hold the coins (for a fee, of course). I didn't think this through, it's just something that popped into my mind right now.

The other thing is I need to know you are making enough profit to actually be best for you to keep the business running. That's partly why I trust mtgox, the other part is the people behind it being themselves high in my trust balance to start with. But I know it would be stupid for them to make a run for it with a lot of cash/btc, as they are not anonymous, so tracking is possible and, more importantly, they are making a lot of profit thus they have an interest in keeping the service running.

Because this discussion is starting to get deep, how would we get Eptiv in on this? I mean, it's an escrow service and it's simple to use(like clearcoin, but not like clearcoin). I run half. spleeder runs the other half.

I guess that the message to BTCrow applies to Eptiv too. Can you think of a way to run the service but have the coins transfered to one of the League members, give him some admin interface for the transaction so he could say "coins received" (although knowing the address you could sniff the blockchain too) and then when the buyer receives the goods an email gets sent to the coin holder to release the funds (stating the address to do so clearly on a page where both buyer and escrow can see it?).

You could potentially have this as an optional thing when someone uses the escrow service:
- use our escrow service (1% fee)
- use our service with coins held by davout (1.25% fee)
etc

I would be willing to escrow some trades for 0 BTC. :)

I understand what you are getting at, and I would gladly escrow for 0% too if a know member asked me to, but as a service you should always get something for your trouble, or else why would you sustain such service?

I know, volunteer work, for the good of the community :)

Correct. I want newbies/members to become involved without the risks of the scams going on. The more trade that is facilitated and more newbies that get involved the more robust Bitcoin becomes and my return is that my investment of time and money becomes more secure.

Edit: If escrow/trade parties wish to offer me some bitcents as a thanks that would be accepted, but not required.

I doubt Spleeder would do that since he doesn't know you from the next person. Wouldn't matter anyhow since the code saves the coins on the site. However if you click on the banner it will take you to the site and you'll notice transactions cost 1% no matter the size.

mndrix of CoinPal (RIP) is pretty trustworthy, and has been used to hold bonds in the past.

@nelisky suggested that I should spam this thread with this link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48704.0

We need your input on the system proposed and, if you'll like it, the support of the legendary "Escrow League" :)

I have nothing to contribute but a much cooler (and sillier) name:

The League of Escrowdinary Gentlemen

Totally fucking agree, Escrow FTW... anything over $100 by new/untrusted members instant escrow, no IF's or BUT's. IF someone refuses well you know they are not good for anything.

I'll be requesting a 1 week escrow for my next currency exchange which will be soon, It's quite a bit of money and I just want gift cards in exchange so 1 week holding the money to prove they are real/not stolen/hacked.

I will gladly join the Escrow League and offer my service for no fee. Let me know if you are interested.

Willing to escrow transactions (4% fee) require PGP signed contract (supplied) by buyer and seller and/or physically signed contract.  Will also accept notarized contracts scanned and sent via e-mail.

Where I live, notarized contracts require the presence of both parties and cost more than 30 EUR...

I did not know that was the case in the EU.  For EU customers that would not be an option.

Here in the United States the notary validates your signature and that you were the individual present attesting to the contract that you sign in front of them.  If more than one signature is needed and the buyer and seller are remote, each can sign the contract separately as long as both get their individual signatures notarized.  I have done this for many real-estate and other transactions requiring contracts.

I would like to nominate nextshare. He has a proven and documented track record for being honest while doing business online (   gpg_identity=http://www.bitshift.io/forum.asc)
 
I can also speak for at least 5 or 6 transactions I conducted with him myself. In every transaction I purchased something off of him worth $150-$200 and in every transaction I paid him Bitcoins up front and he shipped the items as promised - the items were always honestly portrayed and he always conducted himself in an honest and trust worthy fashion. I have been on these forums for 6 months and completed many business deals - I consider nextshare to be among the most trustworthy people I have dealt with. He also has some medical problems that may prevent him from working so making a little income as an escrow middle man would be a good opportunity for him. He is a honest and moral person and For these reasons I feel that he would be an ideal person for this escrow league.

4% come on man, 3% at best...2.5% is a very good number I think. Anything over $200 5% is fair due to risk.

hi nelisky, i know i'm not on your list, but for those that know me, there is now one more option: http://thrucoin.com

Hey. That's great, the more the better. This particular thread is for individuals willing to escrow, but I certainly appreciate the information.

well, i'm an individual, who happens to be a designer/programmer :)   ...but i get your point, you want the human element whereas sites like mine are designed to be automated.

Hmmm, yes and no. I have no quarrel with the automated interface, my issue is with the lack of obvious connection to you. It's your service, not yourself, although the difference is only important because you aren't mentioned anywhere on the service's pages that I could find. It might be moot, and I'll be happy to add you to the list (which I'm not sure has served anyone to date), sometimes I'm dense this way.

i need an escrow...please pm me asap i got a buyer that i dont want to loose

Nice necro-bump :)

This idea of mine never picked up so this is likely a bad place to seek such service. I'm afraid I can't offer much advice either, but the Forum is full of escrow offers, just make sure you are careful and do a little investigation of your own on the chosen member history before sending anything!

How can a member like myself with several successful trades get added to this list?What kind of verification needs to be done,if any?I'd like to offer myself as a future escrow for a fee (I'll need to think before setting a fee though) as I think it's a good way to demonstrate that I'm trustworthy (to the best of my knowledge anyway).

:)

I'm assuming you didn't read my last reply... "this list" was an idea that never saw the light of day, really. Just offer your services in the Forum, I guess, and people will tell you what verification they deem needed, but be prepared to offer some real life data for any non-trivial amount.