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warning I lose $42,000 on an escrow.com transaction as pdd.com, help please.

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Hi,
I bought pdd.com via escrow.com and the seller took the domain back on networksolutions.com after he received the money $42,000 US dollar.

for detailed information, please view http://www.drjw.com/

Any suggestions about what I can do is welcome, thank you!

If you know a lawyer who is an expert in online domain name disputes, please tell me his/her contact information, thank you very much!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
But we know that scammers are very often dumb, which is why they are not engaging in a legitimate activity in the first place.

There's something of a "two hump" IQ distribution among criminals. You have some really, really dumb ones, and you have some much more clever ones.

My point is that you can burn through a pile of cash before you find out which one you have.

You may still remember that epic thread on another forum where a member (DanielG) was busted as a domain thief and he served time in a federal prison thanks to a relentless victim, and a landmark ruling.

Indeed, a "landmark" of New Jersey state law. Remind me what all of that cost.
 
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But when you see a domain name which has been used by the same people for more than 20 years, followed by a recent WHOIS change to a free email account, and then a sale proposal, it's time to get in touch with that 20 year user to find out what's what.

That is the most succinct summary of the entire thread. All buyers should do your own due diligence first. You can’t blame NSL or Escrow for anything.

The seller used a phony ID, and not sure what recourse buyer expects as Escrow verified the scammer somehow. When I set up my escrow account, All I did was scan my ID. I don’t believe they checked deeper, (and it could have been forged), thats the only verification other than the banking for the wire which was also a verified account.

Concierge service at Escrow is well worth it when I had my $Xxxxx sale last year used it and all went well, buyer was in China, who went to archive and verified history and whois, etc. before deciding to buy. Escrow handled all the steps to make sure all went well. Way too many phone calls to Escrow was my only complaint. The buyer was indecisive as to where to transfer the name or keep it at NSL where it was paid for several additional years. I kept the old email on the domain address until the transaction completed, but had requested Escrow handle all communication all under another one. Common sense. The only small snag was my final approval email from the new gaining registry was written in Chinese, pretty incompetent as it was obvious that I was a western seller.
 
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Just my thoughts - If this is all true this isn't the first time someone has been scammed and bought a stolen domain using escrow.com's service. Unless they have changed their terms of service it is the buyer's responsibility to do the due diligence on the ownership of the domain being purchased. The escrow company does not assume liability for the domain ownership, I expect this would also apply to the concierge service if used for the transaction. This is no different than buying a stolen vehicle, it will be returned to the rightful owner and you need to do battle with the person you bought it from. Back in the day, when something like this came to light the first thing to do is alert the bank and attempt to recall the payment. Since this needs to happen almost immediately chances are it is too late here. When I was at escrow.com we used to have relationships with IC3.gov and many agents within the FBI who specialized in cyber-crime. Maybe they still do, but this was the first call I would make after verifying that a crime had taken place. Working with these contacts we were able to get the funds returned occasionally. I expect some of you reading this were either beneficiaries of these relationships or unfortunately ended up losing your funds. Fortunately, escrow.com does know where the funds were sent and will be able to turn the information over to law enforcement once it is determined a crime has occured. They could also be proactive and file a Suspicious Activity Report with FinCEN, I don't believe escrow.com is registered with FinCEN. Escrow companies used to be exempt, but money services businesses must be registered. A Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) is a document that financial institutions must file with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) following a suspected incident of money laundering or fraud. These reports are required under the United States Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) of 1970. Anyway, best of luck and may the good guys win.
 
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I had actually reached out about this domain a few years ago since it looked like PDD was basically just abandoned and the owner, Wayne Patrick (just look up his name + PDD to find him on twitter, linkedin etc), had moved onto other nifty big projects. Never heard back from him or any other previous colleagues so assumed it was being held onto for 1+ of many understandable reasons despite no longer being an active biz as far as I could tell, and a "offer they couldn't refuse" would be out of my budget anyways. Sorry to hear you got scammed, and apparently the scammer used the name "Patrick" and location info to make look more legit, really hope it works out for you somehow but thanks for letting us all know and hopefully it will save some others from getting burnt by the same scammer on other domains he might have stolen.
 
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When I was at escrow.com we used to have relationships with IC3.gov and many agents within the FBI who specialized in cyber-crime. Maybe they still do, but this was the first call I would make after verifying that a crime had taken place.

Having seen a number of instances of this sort of thing since you left, Brandon, I would suggest that practices have changed markedly.

Twice in the last year, I have seen instances in which Escrow.com falsely confirmed receipt of funds and then, to cover up their error, started flinging bizarre accusations at others.

Here's a real beauty, and I apologize for the digression, but people should know what kind of outfit Escrow.com has become.

The scenario is that the parties set up a payment transaction with Escrow.com. Escrow.com then confirmed receipt of payment In reliance on Escrow.com's confirmation, the domain name is transferred.

Then, a month later Escrow.com realizes they screwed up, so they actually send this to the registrar (and see my comments after):

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Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: STOLEN DOMAIN NAME - XXX

We refer to the domain name XXX which Mr XXX has had in his possession since XXX, 2017 and understand that you are the registrar for that domain name.

Mr XXX still has an outstanding amount of $1,594.50 owed by him to our company, Escrow.com <http://Escrow.com> (“Escrow”).

We have tried to contact Mr XXX multiple times by way of several email addresses and a telephone number. All attempts have been unsuccessful.

Mr XXX is in possession of this domain name, not having paid for it. Mr XXX must pay this amount immediately or we will be forced to commence legal proceedings and/or contact the relevant governing authorities to recover the outstanding amount of $1,594.50.

We ask that you please lock XXX until Mr XXX pays Escrow the outstanding amount.

We look forward to hearing from you.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours Faithfully,

Syan Olsen.


--
Syan Olsen
In-house Legal Counsel

Level 20,
680 George Street
Sydney, NSW 2000
Australia

-------------------------------------

The operative question here is if Mr. XXX didn't pay escrow.com, then how does he have the domain name?

This was Escrow.com transaction ID #2960125 should Ms Olsen ever decide to respond to my reply to her ridiculous email (which was sent to a party that was neither the registrar, buyer or seller in the actual transaction).

What Ms. Olsen neglected to mention in any of this was that on Mar-17-2017 in that transaction, Escrow.com confirmed receipt of the buyer's payment. A month later they go claiming that the domain name was stolen because they didn't receive payment.

From the "you have one job" department, you might think, and I'm pretty sure the California Financial Code Section 17414 assumes, that the business of a licensed escrow company is to accurately confirm whether they have been paid or not, before they issue a confirmation of payment.

No, Ms. Olsen, as an escrow provider, you do not "confirm receipt of payment" to the parties to a transaction, then a month later realize you didn't get it, or else you lost it among your other interesting accounting oddities, and claim that the name was "stolen" as a consequence of the parties' reliance on you to do the only job you had.

I mean, just take a look at Olsen's email, and construct in your mind a set of facts under which (a) someone would have taken possession of a domain name before Escrow.com got paid, and (b) anyone in their right mind, let alone Godaddy (to whom the email was directed) would give two shits about an email from an Australian lawyer making unverified claims over threatened "legal action" for an amount of $1,594.50.

I suppose the reaction by GoDaddy was supposed to be "Oh, gollly, an escrow company screwed up their job. We'll get on this one right away!"

But Escrow.com has a curious definition of "stolen":

1. Parties agree on terms at Escrow.com.
2. Escrow.com confirms receipt of payment.
3. Parties transfer name.
4. A month later Escrow.com changes its mind, decides they weren't paid at step 2.

No, that's not "stolen", that's monumental incompetence and a violation of California law by Escrow.com.

What's truly amazing to me from the "your job, do you know how to do it" department, is that Escrow.com screwed up in the amount of $1500 and some change. Instead of eating their mistake, they decide to advertise their incompetence to others, on the assumption that losing $1500 is somehow worse than sending an email saying "We don't know what we're doing." (and on top of that, copying the email to someone who wasn't even involved with registration or transfer of the domain name)
 
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Again, I apologize for the digression.

As for the transaction which is the subject of this thread. Here's what happened:

1. Domain name was stolen by hacker who took control of it.

2. Domain name was offered for sale to OP.

3. Parties set up transaction at Escrow.com.

4. Escrow.com got paid. Domain name was transferred to OP's account by hacker. Escrow.com relied on buyer's notification that the domain name was transferred.

5. Theft victim contacted Netsol, provided enough evidence to establish it was really them and/or other information.

6. Netsol looked at access logs for the account, and other information available to them to establish it was unlikely that that victim is lying about the theft, and transferred it back to the victim. Netsol also likely noted suspicious activity in connection with another domain name recently transferred to that account.

To draw some lines about "who did anything wrong" here....

1. Netsol - their system worked as intended. They received a report from one of their customers about a stolen domain name, and transferred it back. The OP is disappointed not to have been consulted. The only thing the OP can demonstrate is that the OP paid Escrow.com for purchase of the domain name to a person who has never been associated with the domain name, and it is highly likely that Netsol didn't get any response at all from the gmail.com email address with which the domain name had been briefly associated. Given the longstanding registration, the fact that the registrant is an easily-verified existing Indiana corporation, and the likely odd location, proxies, etc. that were used to access the account, the circumstances easily passed the credibility threshold for them that the name was stolen. So, they returned it. It's not usual for a domain name to sit unchanged for many years by a customer in Indiana, and then suddenly get a bunch of updates and confirmation clicks from somewhere else on the planet.

2. Escrow.com - they promise that they will receive funds and hold them until it is confirmed that the domain name is transferred. The buyer paid, the funds were received, the buyer confirmed receipt of the domain name. Boom - their job was done. They don't promise that there are no outstanding legal claims against a domain name, that the domain name is legitimately registered to whomever is selling it, or whatever.

This thread is kind of eye-opening to me, as I was unaware of the pervasive naivete among many members of this forum on how things can go wrong, or what sorts of things might be useful when things do go wrong. If anything, I guess part of that is the way that Escrow.com markets its service, which may convey a broader impression of security than many people believe. I mean, sure, could Escrow.com provide information on "things you might look into" before buying a domain name, to avoid being taken in? Yes, but that would be a silly move for them on a website festooned with pictures of locks and slogans like "SAFELY BUY AND SELL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FROM $100 TO $10 MILLION OR MORE" on it.

Escrow.com has a very narrow job. Their marketing probably makes people think that they are immune from being scammed through them. You are not immune from that. Escrow.com has no duty or obligation to look at the history of the name, whether or not the domain data and their seller payment data make any sense, or the numerous other warning signs that were obviously present here. Escrow.com is not going to inform you of these kinds of things either, because it detracts from the impression they are trying to convey, in order to get a fee out of you.

But, for reals, I would be amused if the OP asks Escrow.com for the transaction fee back, and posts their reply here. Send an email to Syan Olsen, and call it a "Stolen transaction fee". And keep us updated on all of the overwhelming help and support you are getting from Mr. Elsegood. Because I would really like to see the "We understand you were robbed, but we are keeping your $373.80" email.

We may not know much about the rest of it, but we know that Escrow.com got $373.80 of your money, and you got nothing. I'm certain that qualifies for Ms. Olsen's peculiar definition of a theft.
 
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Hi John,
Escrow.com takes the confidentiality of customer data extremely seriously and will not release another customer's data based on accusations but does comply with requests from law enforcement.

Our Chinese language support team is in touch with the buyer and assisting, by no means would we ignore a customer or their requests because their transaction has closed.

Jackson Elsegood
 
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Escrow.com takes the confidentiality of customer data extremely seriously and will not release another customer's data based on accusations

As I already said, you won't give out the payment information, because this thief's confidentiality is taken extremely seriously. Yes. No surprises there. I already had posted that.

And, yes, your Chinese language support team is assisting the buyer in understanding that the buyer is well and truly screwed.

I am certain that your Chinese language support team has informed the OP that they can file a lawsuit and subpoena the information from you. Yes?

As for "requests from law enforcement" I suppose you will also clue in the OP as to the FBI's monetary threshold of "we don't care", which is well in excess of $42,000.
 
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We would not give out any customer's data without an order to do so, this protects the confidentiality of all of our customers.
 
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by no means would we ignore a customer or their requests because their transaction has closed.

It's so good to hear from you, and only three days after the anniversary of your continuing to ignore my email of 6 January 2017 concerning transaction #2162718. Perhaps you will be replying soon?

Here's another gem from someone who calls himself a "Security Engineer" at Escrow.com concerning a very similar set of circumstances which was fortunately and ultimately addressed by an appropriate lawsuit.

----------
On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 7:26:40 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Hi XXX,

Thanks for getting back to us.

The wire transfer receipt is false as the funds never reached our account (it was this receipt that caused us to prematurely and incorrectly mark the transaction as paid).

Regards,

Nicholas Hairs
Security Engineer
Escrow.com

Sent from my mobile.

e: [email protected]
w: www.escrow.com
pgp: 0x670AF0C90C3AD4F6
--------------------

For those playing along at home: A buyer in an Escrow.com sent Escrow.com a fake wire transfer document, which Escrow.com then relied upon in order to issue a payment confirmation - instead of checking their own bank account to see if they had received the payment.

What was particularly inept about this "Security Engineer" email, was that he was replying to a registrar support person who had already told him that the confirmation in question, which had been relied upon by the parties, was the "payment confirmation" issued by Escrow.com. We never saw the fake receipt that Mr. Hairs was talking about. Mr. Hairs just went the extra mile of stating that Escrow.com did not check its own bank account to see if they had received the money, before issuing a confirmation that they had received the money.

So, in other words, when Escrow.com sends a "confirmation" that they have received payment, then you can take them at their word that maybe they did receive it, or maybe they didn't receive it. They'll be sure to let you know, oh, maybe a month or two later.
 
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But, for reals, I would be amused if the OP asks Escrow.com for the transaction fee back, and posts their reply here.

Given the public spectacle this has already become, I'd be surprised, and disheartened if @Jackson Elsegood and/or Escrow.com didn't opt to be proactive, and return the transaction fee to the buyer on their own accord.

But if they did this, would this set some type of precedent, for all future (and perhaps previous) instances, of stolen domain sales at Escrow? Not saying it's a bad thing -- to return transaction fee's back to a buyer who had their purchased domain repossessed due to a stolen domain purchase -- just wondering what type of ripple effects this would have.
 
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Wow, this is good stuff. So whatever the payment method, its not that secure after all.

Maybe next time, I will ask for photo ids, chat online, and call the person's cell phone and look up the carriers and wait for a few weeks. Just to be sure.
 
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I'd be surprised, and disheartened if @Jackson Elsegood and/or Escrow.com didn't opt to be proactive, and return the transaction fee to the buyer on their own accord.

Do a nice and voluntary thing for someone who is distraught? Are you mad?

o-HELL-FROZE-OVER-facebook.jpg


They sent that ridiculous email to GoDaddy saying "Hi, we're an incompetent escrow company" to chase after $1500. One might imagine the public relations genius which inspired that idea.
 
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Caveat emptor for every transaction. Wow.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this comment above is bothersome.

The other thing seems to come into light is that what Payoneer brought up about FINCEN. Suppose that the buyer is using illicit funds? So you as a seller overseas or domestically, you have US Gov liability as well as selling your domain and receiving those “illicit” funds, and you have no way to prove they are legitimate prior to the sale and banking privacy. Escrow companies are as stated above perhaps not checking, not a bank registered to comply with anti-money laundering laws and verification of funds origin nor any guarantees. Is that correct?

So, if you sell a domain and receive “illicit” funds as determined by FINCEN, you could lose them, also more due diligence is needed but nearly impossible to predetermine, unless of course the buyer pays with a credit card.
 
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Just to throw in an alternate point of view....

What about the thousands of secure transactions at escrow?

As with anything the squeaky wheel is always the one that is heard. The ones behaving normally get no attention.

So if they do 10,000 transactions and 2-3 have fraud of some kind is that not pretty good?

I mean... we still have not found anything that is perfect right? When money is involved can any company ever claim nothing goes wrong. Every bank, every payment type, every financial institution!

Seems to me the bigger question is how does the company respond when it does happen. Do they hush up or should they be transparent. In the end getting things in the open and explaining how things happened will heighten everyone senses and eventually we will know what to look for to prevent fraud.

So for me, I would say, judge not the incident itself but what the company does in response. That does not mean they have to refund because after all they did not initiate the fraud, but it does mean the faster they clarify the details the sooner the victim can get some form of resolution. I would like to see a team of some sort that issues a ticket number and follows up with the client daily informing him/her of what is transpiring and what the expected outcome is.
 
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...as a seller overseas or domestically, you have US Gov liability as well as selling your domain and receiving those “illicit” funds, and you have no way to prove they are legitimate prior to the sale and banking privacy. Escrow companies are as stated above perhaps not checking, not a bank registered to comply with anti-money laundering laws and verification of funds origin nor any guarantees. Is that correct?

Hi @offthehandle
Part of a licensed escrow company's job is establishing the source of funds and making sure they are not coming from a sanctioned individual or institution. Checks against the source of funds are mandatory and absolutely included procedures performed by any licensed escrow company.

Jackson
 
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But if they did this, would this set some type of precedent, for all future (and perhaps previous) instances, of stolen domain sales at Escrow?

Here's the simple thing about being a decent person, which is anathema to the way that most people conduct business.

One day, I was walking down the sidewalk and some elderly guy had tripped, fallen in the street, and was having a hard time getting up, since he'd banged himself up pretty good. With the help of another bystander, we got him to his feet, I hailed a cab, gave the driver enough cash to get anywhere in Philly and told the driver to take him wherever he wanted to go.

Am I obligated to do that in every future instance? No.

I mean, if I did that every time, then before long there would be a conspiracy of old guys and cab drivers looking for me on the street, faking falling down, and getting my money!

Oh, well, I took a risk that maybe it wasn't a scam, and maybe things were, that day, exactly as they appeared to be. On the other hand, maybe some old guy and a cabbie made off with my money. But, it sure looked to me like some old guy had fainted, and it would be a good idea to just get him where he wanted to go.

Businesses can do the same thing at their discretion - i.e. take a risk once in a long while if the circumstances appear to them to be compelling. When, as a business, you decide to eat a mistake or do someone a favor out of sheer voluntary decency, you are NOT obligated to do it every time, in every circumstance, for every customer. In fact, when doing so, you can point out that "we are not obligated to do this, but have decided to do so as a completely voluntary accommodation to you".

"But then we'll have millions at our door asking for the same consideration" is the argument against that.

Well, maybe, once in a million times, someone gets lucky, and that's all there is to it. Not every lottery ticket is a winner. Actually, that's the sort of risk that Netsol took when they decided they had enough to go on that it looked pretty much like a stolen name, and in the course of transferring it back to the original registrant, I can guarantee you that Netsol got an indemnification from the registrant against any other claims, and that Netsol had given that victim enough of a sniff test to decide they were good enough to issue that indemnification.

But what do we have here, really, and I mean no offense to anyone. We have some WHOIS history on what looks like a stolen name. We have a psedonymous posting on an internet message board, and a website claiming some facts.

Escrow.com did everything they were supposed to do here, within the limit of their contractual obligation. I like to give Jackson a hard time to keep him on his toes, but neither he, nor Escrow.com are obligated to do diddly-squat. That's where the "legal" part of this picture begins and ends. I participate here for free, and I just want to make sure that if Jackson is reading Namepros while getting paid, he has to earn it.

Jackson's going to repeat - correctly - that Escrow.com could get into a lot of trouble if they started handing out customer information. Yep, theoretically they could. There would be an element of risk for Escrow.com to give out that information, based on whatever level of confidence they could or could not develop that there was hanky-panky going on somewhere. Escrow.com does not have the information that, say, Netsol does with the account logs. They would certainly know, for example, whether "Patrick Sitrok" was the name on the bank account which received the funds, what country those funds went to, whether that makes sense in the context of a domain name registered to a business in Indiana, their own server logs, and so on. Based on that, they could assess the likelihood of the thief then identifying him/herself in an action against them premised on release of his/her confidential information. But they do not have to do any of that, and I certainly don't know what information they do or do not have.

That is why, early on, I had said, that one could file a John Doe lawsuit, subpoena the information from Escrow.com, and after burning through that pile of cash, one could get the data.

The thing about being "consistent" and "zero tolerance, no exceptions" policies is that lawyers believe in them almost as an article of religious faith with total blindness to what can be the consequences of "zero tolerance, no exceptions" policies. This is why, in the US, we lock up children for pretending a banana is a gun and why Escrow.com will "safeguard the confidentiality" of a thief. Now, and I probably can't say this enough, whether or not Escrow.com has sufficient information to satisfy some threshold of "maybe there isn't much risk here" is entirely up to whomever their largest shareholder might be.

Legality and humanity are not the same thing.

Against all that is also the skill that scammers can employ to construct a set of apparent facts which are not what they appear to be.

Let's take this hypothetical:

The company in Indiana is actually behind all this. They get together with someone in another country to make it look like their domain name is stolen. They have the "thief" sell the name, get the money, then go to Netsol to get the domain name back, split the proceeds, and now, with domainers aware that pdd.com is lightly used by someone who might want to sell it, they can sell the name again.

It's far-fetched, but is it impossible? Well, yeah, sure it's possible. Is it likely? No.

We tend to play the odds continuously in our own lives. If I hear hoofbeats approaching down the street from around a corner, I assume it is a horse and not a zebra. But the weird thing about it is that there seems to be legions of people who step out of normality from 9 to 5 when it comes to running a business and say, "Well, we can't just assume it's a horse, since it might be a zebra."

Once in a while - and it's a personal threshold - you just might want to not ask yourself "but what if it's a zebra? I can't take a chance on thinking it's a horse" to avoid the slow death of your own humanity in the world of "zero tolerance, no exceptions".

Finally, I like to pick on Jackson, and he knows that. That's why he makes the big bucks. Nobody's paying me a salary to read Namepros.

Clearly, what any customer using Escrow.com to transfer domain names should do, is to get past the "This is the safest, securest, most risky-free thing on the planet" advertising copy on the site, and should take a look at the helpful information that Escrow.com provides on their site about how things might go wrong, or what steps someone might take before assuming that Escrow.com is a completely sufficient mechanism for avoiding scams.

For example, take a look at Escrow.com's article "Before you buy a domain name" which explains how you can understand how to access whois history or website history information, and the various steps you might take in different situations to confirm the chain of title of a domain name.

Or, for example, take a look at Escrow.com's "Domain buying checklist" which provides a useful step-by-step reference for things you'll want to look at before you buy a domain name, like the simple step of seeing if an address makes sense by using Google maps and asking the other party why they live in a strip mall.

Escrow.com provides those useful articles on their site about how to protect yourself because they care about much more than collecting their fees from people pushing the buttons.

I mean, if it wasn't for the fact that Escrow.com provided all that useful information on additional steps to protect yourself from scams, then I might get the impression that they expected you to simply make the assumptions that their advertising copy suggests.
 
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I mean, sure, could Escrow.com provide information on "things you might look into" before buying a domain name, to avoid being taken in?

For transactions above $5k or $10k they should either remind the buyer to do proper due dilligence , or do it themselves if possible.
 
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As with anything the squeaky wheel is always the one that is heard. The ones behaving normally get no attention.

Good points.

Nobody calls me up to say, "Hey, I just did some transaction and everything went fine, no problems, and I'm happy." I say, "Hey, that's great" and charge them a fee.

So, in my experience, in 100% of contracts where someone contacts me, something has gone wrong. I never hear about anything going right.
 
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For transactions above $5k or $10k they should either remind the buyer to do proper due dilligence

That's exactly why I highly recommend reading the articles on Escrow.com's website about things people should look out for.

I'm sure that Escrow.com has seen more scams than I have, and I've seen a lot of them. That is why they have applied their wealth of knowledge and experience to educating users through the informative articles on their site, in order to share the wisdom they've gained.
 
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As I already said, you won't give out the payment information, because this thief's confidentiality is taken extremely seriously. Yes. No surprises there. I already had posted that.

And, yes, your Chinese language support team is assisting the buyer in understanding that the buyer is well and truly screwed.

I am certain that your Chinese language support team has informed the OP that they can file a lawsuit and subpoena the information from you. Yes?

As for "requests from law enforcement" I suppose you will also clue in the OP as to the FBI's monetary threshold of "we don't care", which is well in excess of $42,000.
yes just like you said,they will give seller information to police,not me,and this is the best they can do.
 
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On the other side of the coin
https://www.namepros.com/threads/pa...me-escrow-business.971364/page-6#post-6516117
I just had a Payoneer escrow that closed before the domain was transferred due to this issue
https://www.namepros.com/threads/co...aimed-was-icann-had-suspended-domain.1059240/
where stupid Network Solutions (NSOL) thought that my domain was ICANN suspended when there was no such issue at all going on, so I am not a big fan of NSOL in the first place - they seem to often hold up transfers out of domains and apparently even (in my case noted here) transfers in of domains, for phantom issues, or simply because they want to retain a domain and not let it go.

In my case I pushed the domain Dynadot to Dynadot after the escrow closed (there was nothing wrong with the domain, it was NOT ICANN suspended) because I am an honest seller. If I had not been honest, and not transferred the domain, would Payoneer have been responsible? Buyer paid with a credit card, could he not have disputed the payment to Payoneer?

---

In this situation here, I assume buyer wired the money to escrow. He has no recourse other than somehow finding and suing the seller, which would be, as already pointed out, expensive and perhaps not even productive, perhaps resulting in a worthless judgment (including a judgment worthless because the seller is in some foreign country that will not recognize the judgment) or turning the matter over to the authorities for criminal prosecution, which let's face it, although this sum of money sounds like a lot, when it comes to a possible multinational criminal investigation perhaps ending in some country which has no diplomatic ties to the U.S. and given that buyer himself is apparently China and would not exactly be right next door to testify in a U.S. court, doubtful that much would happen.

In the U.S. a victim of say, identity or credit card fraud, is supposed to file the complaint with his hometown police and then it is up to his hometown police to coordinate with the authorities in the jurisdiction(s) where the actual crime(s) occurred.

But with this buyer we're talking about a guy in China, and China is not going to coordinate with U.S. authorities, so if anything is going to be done, only the FBI will do anything about it as it is probably an across state lines to a foreign country type crime, I imagine. I don't see any local police having jurisdiction here unless this guy is stupid enough to be right in the U.S. and pull this scam.

I once had a client who was defrauded on the internet for low five figures and we never could get the FBI, IC3 or local cops to do anything about it, and it was only after I investigated the culprit myself with the help of a private investigator friend, that we were able to put enough pressure on him, because he was worried that he might go down criminally, that he refunded every bit of my client's money. Later though, after he was finally arrested for doing the same thing to others that he did to my client, we found out that he had "robbed Peter to pay Paul" - that is, bilked others to get the money to pay back my client. The culprit had paid back only my client only because we scared him - all the other victims were left out to dry.
It was only after this scammer ripped off enough people that finally the authorities stepped in to do something - they would not do anything for my client when he seemed to be the only victim.
 
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escrow.com already contact me,they will provide all information to police,I'm thanks for that.
 
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Hi,

Unfortunately this may be a case of stolen domains. Now see full details below.

PDD.com Real Owner before Transaction whose email address is [email protected]

Show attachment 77241


PDD.com Escrow.com Transaction Owner whose email address is [email protected] which does not match with Owner's email address before transaction (See above).

Show attachment 77242


3620.com Real Owner before Transaction whose email address is [email protected]

Show attachment 77243


3620.com Sedo.com Transaction Owner whose email address is [email protected] which does not match with Owner's email address before transaction (See above).

Show attachment 77244


Sedo has history of stolen domains listed for sale. They had taken some steps sometimes to delist it and sometimes little late. In this case looks like they were late.

In short when we do this kind of transaction we need to do our own investigation as well. @.NJ & @imadoer is very good friend of mine and I have learned a lot from him. We need to be very careful when we do big transaction like this.

Still let me try to find out more detail how to get money back. Unfortunately there is high probability these are stolen names. That is the reason NetworkSolutions.com may have locked your account even it was not your fault. Now I think we need to focus on how to get money back rather than how to get names back. Just my thought. Still lets work together to get to the root of this issue.

Let me try to find out more and I will share more if I find some more helpful info.

Sorry to hear about this.

Thanks


Thanks @jberryhill for sharing your valuable experience and thoughts with all of us. We learned a lot from this conversation.

Now I missed one more little info on top of little findings so far by all friends including myself.

Lets check message from NetworkSolutions at time of transferring name from One account to another account for PDD.com transfer.

Network PDD.JPG


In Above message Seller Name is "Frank Slakmon" which does not match with so called fake seller "Patrik Sitrok" which is again very big red flag.

@American normally all friends from china wants to get their name in china most probably ENAME. Why you chose to stay with NetworkSolution?? Did Seller enforce to stay with Netowork Solutions?? I mean did seller enforce you do internal transfer only??

I have more to share which I will share soon.

Thanks
 
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