Can you still get scammed via clearcoin?

[rocio]

Hi

Can someone help with understanding the terms on clearcoin please. Am I correct to think that the sender of the bc's can pay bc's into CC to create Escrow, then receive the payment (via Western Union for example)  and then just refuse to release the coins and dissapear?
Then at the end of the Escrow period, receive the coins back from Clearcoin?

This is the text from the Clearcoin site copied;

"The coins in this transaction will either be sent to the designated bitcoin address or, if the sender does not release the coins before the expiration date, refunded to the sender.

Funds will be automatically released on 16 June, 2011 unless they are held."

This does not seem to fit my understanding of escrow payments, can someone explain if i am wrong? Can the receiver receive nothing and the bc's go back to the sender who then has the cash and the coins? boo!

Thanks!

[Jack of Diamonds]

Yes you can. It's anything but foolproof.

[tito13kfm]

Yes, but there is a also a release to charity option.  The problem with that option is it hurts the seller if the buyer doesn't come through.  The safest way would be to have a 3rd party trusted arbitrator (long time forum member or somebody who has so many bitcoins they won't bother to steal yours.)  who would be in charge of releasing the coins.  They would charge an escrow fee of say 1% and if there is a problem, they'd ask for evidence from buyer and seller.  There ruling would be final.

[rocio]

Yes, but there is a also a release to charity option.  The problem with that option is it hurts the seller if the buyer doesn't come through.  

Thanks for replying

how does that work? from the text from the cc site it says the bc's would go back to the sender if sender did not relase, no?

[tito13kfm]

When setting up the escrow you can choose unreleased coins to be released to specific charities instead of being sent back.

[rocio]

So that means there is NO SECURITY in Clearcoin escrow at all for the person sending cash via Western Union, because the seller of bc's could collect the cash and collect the Bc's back later from Clearcoin when escrow expires! nothing the sender of cash could do about it?

thats terrible!

If that was true why would anyone ever select "Go to a charity"? All would select "come back to me" no?

I think I must be misunderstanding something important!

[Frozenlock]

If you send money via Western Union, you should ask the seller to use the charity option. This way he has no way of getting his BTC back.

It's not 100% secure, but way better than "return to senders after X days".