Bitcoin Forum

Surely they are losing out because of the miner fees each time they said the transaction to the seller. Why would they not want fees to cover those expenses? They are losing out every time. Am I missing something? 

They are taking fees but giving service without any fees its simple no one going to do this without miner service

Thanks for the explanation I thought I was being stupid or missing something.

Escrow provides their service to the community to make the bitcoin economy larger and more healthy. They will usually make the buyer send an extra .0001 btc to cover the 2nd tx fee

Most escrow services on these forums also accept tips

That's true, and sometimes the seller (in most cases) and buyer (a bit less) are happy with the trade and they decide to tip.  Sometimes it's actually a bit more profitable, it all depends on who your dealing with.

All in all, I offer escrow services to help the community, and to minimize [newbie] scams. :)

Escrow is a good thing.  If a escrow offers it for no fee i would be a little worried unless very well know escrow agent.  Normal is 1 percent or so depending on what is being used.

I think that accepting tips for escrow services would be more profitable then taking a percentage for most smaller deals. If a seller would tip escrow .01 on a .25 deal, then the escrow just made 4% on the deal, which I don't think he would be able to earn charging a fixed percentage.

People won't pay out tips that often, from what I gather. So it would be more profitable if they just charged a fixed percentage (Example; 1%) and then went from there. You'd be asking for 1 person in every 4 exchanges to send you 4%, based on your example, so it just wouldn't be a better deal to just accept tips.

They do without charge because people using bitcoin to trade things, and don't crying about bitcoin scams to everyone they can reach, is indirectly beneficial to them, since more people will hold and trust bitcoin.

They see the whole picture, not only short term profits.

How can I use an escrow to sell like a webpage for BTC? or other digital goods

True, but if they ask for a fixed fee, they probably won't have many customers.
After all, there are quite a number of highly trusted people here providing free/tips escrow services.

1. They may be given tips.
2. They are doing it kind of like a community service.

Usually they get some fees and some others depend on tips.

I think a lot less people would use escrow services if escrow services were to charge for their services. I also think that escrow would have to spend a lot more time negotiating their price then it is really worth. 

Personally i think its great that some escrow do this for free , it keep the forum a bit cleaner from scammers

I think when they say free it still includes the transaction fees. Most escrowers who offer a free service probably just do this to attract more users in the hope that they get a little tip from each deal.


Same way you use any other deal. The person who wants to buy sends the money to the escrow and the seller transfers the digital goods over to the buyer, then the escrow releases the funds.

Escrow isn't a great way to earn money but a great way to improve the trust among the bitcoin community.

That's true, but it can also be used for a ;long con. Build up trust over a bit of time handling small amounts then as soon as somebody trusts you with a very large amount like 100 bitcoins or something you could dissapear. Thankfully though I think most escrowers are legit, but there's always a level of trust involved.

I think the most trusted escrow here is escrow.ms, I would do large transaction with him without fear, but still there's a 0,00001% possibility that he will disappear with the coins.

they take tips instead right?  is there a list since John K seems to be no longer for escrow besides escrow.ms.

I think the chance is much higher than that, as he may come to an accident (fire accident, car crash, etc.) and be unable to release the escrow (not that he runs away with your coins).

so the summary is:

they charge for the transaction fee but nothing else. this is normally charged by the seller.

some members of the forum do offer completely free escrow services which offer people to tip.

I believe they contribute to the community and want to have a bigger audience for the bitcoin currency.

It's already be discussed most escrows which require no fees at all are doing it for the community such as a community service but that is rare and most do require fees.

Do escrows scam people?

They can do but if you use a trusted escrow the odds are reduced as most are very trusted in the community and have been in the community for at least 2 years and have handled over 1000 Bitcoin.

Exactly.

If someone have held hundreds and thousands of bitcoin as escrow before without scamming, would he/she scam my small amount of bitcoin? Probably not. :D

Probably not. But there is of course still a possibility.

I've never seen an escrow (website at least) without fees, but if bitcointalk users are doing it they are just doing it for a favor, or maybe for some trust.

Most of escrows working here on this forum so they no need any website they have threads in Lending and services sections

I don't think I know or would trust a website escrow anyway at least here you know some of the history with the escrow.

That's true, but escrow is used because you don't trust the buyer/seller you are dealing with.
So, if you think the escrow person is more trustworthy than the buyer/seller, you should definitely use the escrow service. :D

Escrows also have pretty big minimums. If I were to need an escrow I would contact an old experienced member with a good trust rating and experience with being an escrow.

I've been offering a free escrow service for over 2 years. Yes I have lost a little btc (.00X?) due to transaction fees but I have more than made up for it in tips.

Thats a huge factor, so I guess whenever you do any transaction it better not be a huge one.

The chances of this happening is very slim. The deaths per 100,000 are very small for these things happening.

You can do a 2-of-3 transaction if you are worried about that.
It is statistically very very unlikely to have 2 escrows getting into accident at the time. :)