Is escrowing for yourself using a secret alt OK?

[Quickseller]

Let me answer your question with another question.

If I were to trade you my Bitcoin for your litecoin, how would I be able to resolve a dispute if you had sent me your litecoin directly that I would not be able to do if I was acting as escrow for my alt?

What is the difference? In both cases there is the exact same potential bias

Thank you for proving my point. In a scenario where you secretly "self-escrow", you would have a bias similar to two parties trying to resolve a dispute in a trade without an escrow. As an escrow, hiding this bias from the other party is misleading and disingenuous.

No I am not. As I previously mentioned, there is no reason why someone would request the use of an escrow when trading with me directly if they would trust me with a similar amount as escrow. In both cases I could just run away with the money.

[Keyser Soze]

Let me answer your question with another question.

If I were to trade you my Bitcoin for your litecoin, how would I be able to resolve a dispute if you had sent me your litecoin directly that I would not be able to do if I was acting as escrow for my alt?

What is the difference? In both cases there is the exact same potential bias

Thank you for proving my point. In a scenario where you secretly "self-escrow", you would have a bias similar to two parties trying to resolve a dispute in a trade without an escrow. As an escrow, hiding this bias from the other party is misleading and disingenuous.

No I am not. As I previously mentioned, there is no reason why someone would request the use of an escrow when trading with me directly if they would trust me with a similar amount as escrow. In both cases I could just run away with the money.

We seem to be discussing different things here. I am not talking about someone trusting an escrow with an amount of money, I am taking about trusting the escrow will be neutral and act with as little bias as possible if a dispute were to occur.

Lets look at two scenarios:

1) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Charlie acting as escrow. All three parties are different people.
2) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Daniel acting a escrow. Alice thinks Bob and Daniel are different people, but secretly Bob and Daniel are the same person.

If a dispute were to occur during the trade (for example, an honest misunderstanding), would you rather be Alice in scenario 1 or 2?

[Quickseller]

Let me answer your question with another question.

If I were to trade you my Bitcoin for your litecoin, how would I be able to resolve a dispute if you had sent me your litecoin directly that I would not be able to do if I was acting as escrow for my alt?

What is the difference? In both cases there is the exact same potential bias

Thank you for proving my point. In a scenario where you secretly "self-escrow", you would have a bias similar to two parties trying to resolve a dispute in a trade without an escrow. As an escrow, hiding this bias from the other party is misleading and disingenuous.

No I am not. As I previously mentioned, there is no reason why someone would request the use of an escrow when trading with me directly if they would trust me with a similar amount as escrow. In both cases I could just run away with the money.

We seem to be discussing different things here. I am not talking about someone trusting an escrow with an amount of money, I am taking about trusting the escrow will be neutral and act with as little bias as possible if a dispute were to occur.

Lets look at two scenarios:

1) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Charlie acting as escrow. All three parties are different people.
2) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Daniel acting a escrow. Alice thinks Bob and Daniel are different people, but secretly Bob and Daniel are the same person.

If a dispute were to occur during the trade (for example, an honest misunderstanding), would you rather be Alice in scenario 1 or 2?

You are missing the point. If I trust someone with some amount of money then I will send first to them when trading with them, no escrow necessary. Any dispute would get resolved the exact same way if scenario 2 were to happen.

It is not necessary to use escrow in every trade you participate in assuming that one party is sufficiently trusted.

[Quickseller]

If I trusted Daniel enough to use him as escrow then there would be zero reason to ask to use escrow for a similar trade.

[Blazed]

Obviously self escrow is a bad thing - no doubts. I am not sure however that it is really a scam and deserves negative trust. I would say shady/unethical, but I would also say with almost 100% certainty that he would never have ripped anyone off. I still think we were better off with QS on the DT than not on it though.

One could argue that charging for an escrow service while actually being the counterparty that the purchaser is looking for protection from is scammy in its own right. It could be considered that the purchaser of the escrow has been ripped off for the amount of the escrow fee.

I would much rather see escrow providers make a clear statement that they will inform you whenever they are also the person you are trading with, rather than a wishy-washy statement like:

    "no representations are made as to the identity of the person you are trading with, this includes the possibility of trading with an alt of QS, as well as trading with someone other then you believe them to be".

I mean, why not just tell people that you are wearing two hats at the same time, and let them decide whether they want to take the associated risk or not? In fact why even set up 5 or more alts in the first place, if not for trust farming and abuse?

FYI: Since I am labeled as one of the "Big 5 Escrows" - I do not have any alt accounts and would never use myself to escrow a deal with myself.

[Keyser Soze]

We seem to be discussing different things here. I am not talking about someone trusting an escrow with an amount of money, I am taking about trusting the escrow will be neutral and act with as little bias as possible if a dispute were to occur.

Lets look at two scenarios:

1) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Charlie acting as escrow. All three parties are different people.
2) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Daniel acting a escrow. Alice thinks Bob and Daniel are different people, but secretly Bob and Daniel are the same person.

If a dispute were to occur during the trade (for example, an honest misunderstanding), would you rather be Alice in scenario 1 or 2?

You are missing the point. If I trust someone with some amount of money then I will send first to them when trading with them, no escrow necessary. Any dispute would get resolved the exact same way if scenario 2 were to happen.

It is not necessary to use escrow in every trade you participate in assuming that one party is sufficiently trusted.

If I trusted Daniel enough to use him as escrow then there would be zero reason to ask to use escrow for a similar trade.

In both scenarios Alice is expecting the escrow to resolve the dispute as a third party. Alice has no reason to suspect the escrow has any bias towards Alice or Bob.
In scenario 1, Charlie is able to act without bias because he is an independent party.
In scenario 2, Daniel is unable to act without bias because he is also acting as a party to the trade.

Scenario 1 will always be more favorable for Alice compared to scenario 2 since there is no bias. Also, by definition, Daniel is not an escrow to the trade since he is not a third party.

As I stated previously, it is misleading and disingenuous to act as if you were providing an escrow service when you really are not.

[Quickseller]

You have still failed to explain why that matters. If it was known that Daniel is the person you are trading with then you would have sent first to Daniel without escrow.

[Sourgummies]

All these votes mean nothing to you Quickseller?

If you are acting escrow without the person knowing,you are acting in bad faith. It is a scam because you also charge a fee for a service people did not know was a joke.
When 3 people are involved in a deal and 2 of them are the same person,its a scam! You seem to be deflecting back on people instead of owning up to that fact.
The more irrational you get on this the more you look like some one people should not deal with in any way.

This is all I am going to say,because I do not want be written off as a alt for who knows whats agenda. Just sad to see some one with this much power in the community has a poor moral compass.

[dooglus]

You are missing the point. If I trust someone with some amount of money then I will send first to them when trading with them, no escrow necessary. Any dispute would get resolved the exact same way if scenario 2 were to happen.

It is not necessary to use escrow in every trade you participate in assuming that one party is sufficiently trusted.

What if that one party used to be sufficiently trusted, but later on it came to light that he was tricking people into letting him escrow deals he himself was involved in? That might be enough to make you not want to deal with him in the future, no?

Fuck Daniel. I always knew he was up to no good.

[goose20]

Hi all, I've been thinking about a couple of different scenarios wondering what I would do if I was escrow. I keep coming up with 2 different answers. Would love to hear what all you guys would do.

SCENARIO
Escrow = John K2 (100% honest)
Seller = BlazedFarout (100% honest)
Buyer = BadDaddybear (100% honest)

- BadDaddybear has a love for a certain type of honey that BlazedFarout happens to sell.
- They negotiate a deal for 5BTC and ask John K2 to escrow.
- Escrow is funded appropriately.
- honey is posted well packaged, insured, and with full tracking with signature etc etc.
- Naughtywolf works as a postman delivering to BadDaddybear.
- Naughtywolf has noticed a number of packages in recent times being delivered to BadDaddybear, so he opens this one package (with the special honey) and is delighted.
- Naughtywolf helps himself to the honey but still proceeds to deliver an empty package.
- BadDaddybear takes package inside and eagerly opens it only to find it empty. Poor BadDaddybear
- BadDaddybear informs the others of this and an insurance claim is made immediately.
- insurance refuses to pay because of tracking and signed acceptance of delivery.

?? What should escrow do

1. Refund BadDaddybear because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about not getting the honey.
2. Pay BlazedFarout because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about sending honey. And he has tracking and signed acceptance etc.
3. Split the BTC 50/50 - knowing that sometimes things go wrong through no fault of either party. Naughtywolfs exist unfortunately.


Thanks all

[Vod]

Hi all, I've been thinking about a couple of different scenarios wondering what I would do if I was escrow. I keep coming up with 2 different answers. Would love to hear what all you guys would do.

I would start a new thread instead of going offopic.   

[Brad Harrison]

Seems shady as f*ck and should not be done

[u9y42]

I also voted "No".

I don't usually engage in many trades (in fact, I think I only ever did one trade so far around here, signature campaigns apart), but I imagine I would be pretty unhappy if I caught someone doing that to me - not only would that be an abuse of the trust I had placed in that user, but it would also expose me to unnecessary risk, in case things went wrong (because, as pointed out several times so far, there would effectively be no escrow).

[Quickseller]

You are missing the point. If I trust someone with some amount of money then I will send first to them when trading with them, no escrow necessary. Any dispute would get resolved the exact same way if scenario 2 were to happen.

It is not necessary to use escrow in every trade you participate in assuming that one party is sufficiently trusted.

What if that one party used to be sufficiently trusted, but later on it came to light that he was tricking people into letting him escrow deals he himself was involved in? That might be enough to make you not want to deal with him in the future, no?

Fuck Daniel. I always knew he was up to no good.

That would not affect any trades that were taking place at the time of the escrowed deal.

You are poising a loaded question, just as the question in the OP is loaded as the question in the OP implies that almost every deal done without escrow is going to result in fraud and/or other issues.

I do not know how many deals you have escrowed for, however the deals that I have acted as escrow for have ~99% of the time (the overwhelming majority by far) have been without any issues. In the ~1% of cases when there was an issue, the majority of those cases involved some kind of clear malicious intent (eg a scam attempt), and in the remaining issues, any disputes can almost always be resolved by asking clear and concise questions about both sides of the story, what each side thinks is fair, and helping them reach a middle ground voluntarily.

To directly answer your question, if someone was no longer sufficiently trusted for someone else to send first to that person, then they would also be unable for either party to trust him to act as escrow.

Most of the people in this thread are engaging in groupthink, and I have really not seen any solid arguments as to why escrowing your own deal is any different then having the other person sending first to you, and why anyone would ever want to use a particular person as escrow when they would not be willing to send first for a similar deal.

There are also a large number of obvious sock-puppet accounts in this thread that are pretty clearly just agreeing with each-other, which is also concerning.

[goose20]

Hi all, I've been thinking about a couple of different scenarios wondering what I would do if I was escrow. I keep coming up with 2 different answers. Would love to hear what all you guys would do.

I would start a new thread instead of going offopic.  

Lol...its on-topic.
Just didn't get Scenario2 in yet.

These scenarios being used to decide how to vote on this topic.

SCENARIO2
Escrow = Big John (100% honest)
Seller = Sam  (honesty not 100% known - Alt of Big John)
Buyer = Bill (honesty not 100% known)

Same circumstances as scenario above.

?? What should escrow do

1. Refund Bill because he says he wouldn't lie about not getting the honey.
2. Pay Sam because he has tracking and signed acceptance etc.
3. Split the BTC 50/50 - knowing that sometimes things go wrong through no fault of either party. Naughtywolfs exist unfortunately.


Despite the same circumstances in the background - I come up with a different answer for both scenarios. As such, I do not believe you can unbiasedly escrow for yourself - so no, it is not ok.

Thanks again.

[dooglus]

Hi all, I've been thinking about a couple of different scenarios wondering what I would do if I was escrow. I keep coming up with 2 different answers. Would love to hear what all you guys would do.

SCENARIO
Escrow = John K2 (100% honest)
Seller = BlazedFarout (100% honest)
Buyer = BadDaddybear (100% honest)

- BadDaddybear has a love for a certain type of honey that BlazedFarout happens to sell.
- They negotiate a deal for 5BTC and ask John K2 to escrow.
- Escrow is funded appropriately.
- honey is posted well packaged, insured, and with full tracking with signature etc etc.
- Naughtywolf works as a postman delivering to BadDaddybear.
- Naughtywolf has noticed a number of packages in recent times being delivered to BadDaddybear, so he opens this one package (with the special honey) and is delighted.
- Naughtywolf helps himself to the honey but still proceeds to deliver an empty package.
- BadDaddybear takes package inside and eagerly opens it only to find it empty. Poor BadDaddybear
- BadDaddybear informs the others of this and an insurance claim is made immediately.
- insurance refuses to pay because of tracking and signed acceptance of delivery.

?? What should escrow do

1. Refund BadDaddybear because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about not getting the honey.
2. Pay BlazedFarout because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about sending honey. And he has tracking and signed acceptance etc.
3. Split the BTC 50/50 - knowing that sometimes things go wrong through no fault of either party. Naughtywolfs exist unfortunately.

Thanks all

And to modify your scenario a little, what if:

Escrow = QuickCellar (100% honest)
Seller = SpeedyBasement (100% honest except that he sometimes likes to escrow his own deals using a pseudonym)

Keep everything else the same.

Now will the Escrow side with the Buyer or the Seller?

It seems very unlikely in this situation that BadDaddybear is getting any refund, since the escrow knows for a fact that the seller sent the honey. BadDaddybear would be lucky not to end up with red trust from the escrow's 4 alt accounts.

[goose20]

Hi all, I've been thinking about a couple of different scenarios wondering what I would do if I was escrow. I keep coming up with 2 different answers. Would love to hear what all you guys would do.

SCENARIO
Escrow = John K2 (100% honest)
Seller = BlazedFarout (100% honest)
Buyer = BadDaddybear (100% honest)

- BadDaddybear has a love for a certain type of honey that BlazedFarout happens to sell.
- They negotiate a deal for 5BTC and ask John K2 to escrow.
- Escrow is funded appropriately.
- honey is posted well packaged, insured, and with full tracking with signature etc etc.
- Naughtywolf works as a postman delivering to BadDaddybear.
- Naughtywolf has noticed a number of packages in recent times being delivered to BadDaddybear, so he opens this one package (with the special honey) and is delighted.
- Naughtywolf helps himself to the honey but still proceeds to deliver an empty package.
- BadDaddybear takes package inside and eagerly opens it only to find it empty. Poor BadDaddybear
- BadDaddybear informs the others of this and an insurance claim is made immediately.
- insurance refuses to pay because of tracking and signed acceptance of delivery.

?? What should escrow do

1. Refund BadDaddybear because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about not getting the honey.
2. Pay BlazedFarout because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about sending honey. And he has tracking and signed acceptance etc.
3. Split the BTC 50/50 - knowing that sometimes things go wrong through no fault of either party. Naughtywolfs exist unfortunately.

Thanks all

And to modify your scenario a little, what if:

Escrow = QuickCellar (100% honest)
Seller = SpeedyBasement (100% honest except that he sometimes likes to escrow his own deals using a pseudonym)

Keep everything else the same.

Now will the Escrow side with the Buyer or the Seller?

It seems very unlikely in this situation that BadDaddybear is getting any refund, since the escrow knows for a fact that the seller sent the honey. BadDaddybear would be lucky not to end up with red trust from the escrow's 4 alt accounts.

Yep agree. See Scenario2 Doog

[Quickseller]

--snip--
- Naughtywolf works as a postman delivering to BadDaddybear.
- Naughtywolf has noticed a number of packages in recent times being delivered to BadDaddybear, so he opens this one package (with the special honey) and is delighted.
- Naughtywolf helps himself to the honey but still proceeds to deliver an empty package.
--snip--
- insurance refuses to pay because of tracking and signed acceptance of delivery.
--snip--

That is not how postal insurance works. Just because a package is signed for, it does not mean that an insurance claim would be denied for a damaged parcel (which would apply in your scenario).

I really have not heard this kind of scenario actually ever happening. It would also be unlikely that the mail carrier only steal the contents of a single parcel, so the insurance company would likely have multiple reports of thefts/damage from a common mail carrier.

The sending party is generally going to be the insured party.

[Quickseller]

Hi all, I've been thinking about a couple of different scenarios wondering what I would do if I was escrow. I keep coming up with 2 different answers. Would love to hear what all you guys would do.

SCENARIO
Escrow = John K2 (100% honest)
Seller = BlazedFarout (100% honest)
Buyer = BadDaddybear (100% honest)

- BadDaddybear has a love for a certain type of honey that BlazedFarout happens to sell.
- They negotiate a deal for 5BTC and ask John K2 to escrow.
- Escrow is funded appropriately.
- honey is posted well packaged, insured, and with full tracking with signature etc etc.
- Naughtywolf works as a postman delivering to BadDaddybear.
- Naughtywolf has noticed a number of packages in recent times being delivered to BadDaddybear, so he opens this one package (with the special honey) and is delighted.
- Naughtywolf helps himself to the honey but still proceeds to deliver an empty package.
- BadDaddybear takes package inside and eagerly opens it only to find it empty. Poor BadDaddybear
- BadDaddybear informs the others of this and an insurance claim is made immediately.
- insurance refuses to pay because of tracking and signed acceptance of delivery.

?? What should escrow do

1. Refund BadDaddybear because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about not getting the honey.
2. Pay BlazedFarout because he is known as honest and wouldn't lie about sending honey. And he has tracking and signed acceptance etc.
3. Split the BTC 50/50 - knowing that sometimes things go wrong through no fault of either party. Naughtywolfs exist unfortunately.

Thanks all

And to modify your scenario a little, what if:

Escrow = QuickCellar (100% honest)
Seller = SpeedyBasement (100% honest except that he sometimes likes to escrow his own deals using a pseudonym)

Keep everything else the same.

Now will the Escrow side with the Buyer or the Seller?

It seems very unlikely in this situation that BadDaddybear is getting any refund, since the escrow knows for a fact that the seller sent the honey. BadDaddybear would be lucky not to end up with red trust from the escrow's 4 alt accounts.

Again, this is a loaded question.

You have failed to describe how this would be any different then if this was a direct trade.

[goose20]

--snip--
- Naughtywolf works as a postman delivering to BadDaddybear.
- Naughtywolf has noticed a number of packages in recent times being delivered to BadDaddybear, so he opens this one package (with the special honey) and is delighted.
- Naughtywolf helps himself to the honey but still proceeds to deliver an empty package.
--snip--
- insurance refuses to pay because of tracking and signed acceptance of delivery.
--snip--

That is not how postal insurance works. Just because a package is signed for, it does not mean that an insurance claim would be denied for a damaged parcel (which would apply in your scenario).

I really have not heard this kind of scenario actually ever happening. It would also be unlikely that the mail carrier only steal the contents of a single parcel, so the insurance company would likely have multiple reports of thefts/damage from a common mail carrier.

The sending party is generally going to be the insured party.

That all may be case.^
The point I was trying to make was.."sometimes things go wrong through no fault of either party".