Maybe do a little research YOURSELF on the person you are trusting with your money. (I know, crazy talk)
Thats's not as safe as you let it sound. Even i believed master-P being a honest escrow because i saw honest behaviour from him. Something that let me believe that he has a good character. And I have to deal with many scammers as escrow. They simply are pretty good actors often enough.
The only way to be pretty sure about the character of an online character is when he had the chance to get rich by stealing but didn't do it. For example dooglus. He held, i believe, coins worth $60 Million. He never would get a bigger chance to steal but he paid it back. I think there is no better proof of character than that. And it's highly likely that such a responsible person would not sell his account.
The solution has been around for ages but it seems NOT A SINGLE TRUSTED ESCROW is pushing multi-sig.
Its always "You can trust this one or that one or ME with YOUR money" not a one pushing multi-sig. You just need to ask yourself why.
The reality is that out of hundreds of trades maybe one person asks if you offer multisig. And even then, what multisig will you use? 2 of 3? Then can you be sure that the seller is not the same as the escrow? You still can be scammed pretty easy.
The only safer option that was suggested by grtthegreat lately is 4of 5 or so. Where three trusted escrows are involved. It's very unlikely that all of these escrows would be scammer.
But again... who has the knowledge to handle multisig? I think that this is too complicated for the average user and most would want to use the classic way of escrow anyway.
Escrow should never be used unless for small amounts and the end result should ALWAYS be helping to teach noobs how to use multi-sig.
If your escrow is not teaching you about, and how to use multi-sig, you should find another escrow.
Its YOUR Money. and with a little extra work, you get to stay in control of it.(if you figured out how to use bitcoin, you can figure out multi-sig too)
Esp. if you are looking for "free" escrow - Why would anyone do free work unless there was a payout at the end of the rainbow.
The only Free service I offer requires YOU to do all the work. I would only get involved when arbitration is needed.
Well, only because you can't imagine helping others for free once in a while doesn't mean you can judge all escrows that offer free escrow with your mindset. In fact free means that you can get tips and in my opinion the tips often enough are higher than those escrows receive that demand a fixed fee. Because they can show their appreciation of your service that way. And it's more pleasing for the escrow when he sees a user was happy with what you did.
In fact, I wouldn't even know you used my service unless I'm contacted for arbitration.
You finally found a moneys that you are completely in control of.
When you hand this money over freely to a stranger, it is NO LONGER YOUR MONEY.
Stay in control, use 2-3 multi-sig with a trusted arbitrator.
Ah i see, your stressing about how bad all escrows are is in fact an advertising for your service. Well, ok.
But yes, i think multisig generally is more safe, only the users seems to be not ready yet. I hope you made sure with your service that the private keys of the clients are not possibly be seen by your website. Otherwise people would risk that you could forward the coins yourself. In fact it can't be made sure that your website is not altered at one point in time so that you control the coins in fact. Be it by you or by a hacker. I only speak about potential risks, no accusation of course. There simply is no 100% safety.
And do your own research. ......or buy a big box of tissues.
The choice is yours.
...And yes, I am going to put out there that I have been doing "FREE Escrow" in bitcoin-OTC for many years.
But if you did your research, you would already know that.
Does they have their own escrow functionality or do you offer it through a website of yours? Anyway, regardless how it would be, there always would be the chance of "i was hacked". Or can you give a reason why that is impossible? I admit i did not have the time to check you out so maybe there is some way iam not aware of yet.
