Escrow does not hold the domain name.
Does anyone know of a service similar to Sedo which holds both the domain name from the seller and the money from the buyer but costs less?
I am surprised at lack of domain escrow from most escrow services. Too be honest, I am even more surprised that domain sellers are so ok with it, considering there is no easy/cheap way to get the domain back if the buyer decides not to be fair and lies about not receiving the domain.
With domain push, it is still ok as there is some proof sent by registrar, but with domain transfer, If things go wrong, I doubt there is any remedy except for legal action, which would not be worth most low/mid $x,xxx domain sales.
I wonder how the escrow service will handle the situation if the buyer even after having the domain claims they did not receive it after the transfer, specially it they don't update whois or they could be more sly and update the whois with sellers info or some other info?
Third party escrow services can not access the buyers account, and no registrar would officially provide a third party escrow service information from a domain account to prove the buyer has the domain, as this would leave the registrar open to a breach of privacy issue. Unofficially the escrow service may find out the domain is with buyer but AFAIK, they would still not legally be able to release the funds to seller unless buyer confirms.
This is what I have gathered from reading online about domain escrow and various escrow websites.
@DotCom9
For future requirement, have a look at
Escrow service that....?
After reading
https://sedo.com/us/services/domain-transfer/ , I was under assumption Sedo does escrow domains ( some tld's like .com/.net) but just couple of days ago, I had a chat with sedo support, they said they do not escrow domains, not even for .com! Maybe they do only for high value sales?
Escrow.com
does escrow domains but their fees are high. From what I have read online, they are good. I guess one pays for top service.Though it does not make sense to pay such high fees for low value sales.
@Mauli Fry , I have read only good things about Escrow.com, if my sale was to be large enough, I would not think twice before using Escrow.com. ( still waiting for that high value sale
)
btw, Mauli Fry's NP account has escrow logo, so I am going to assume Mauli Fry is with Escrow and all is good, but a funny thought occurred to me, what if it was the seller with a new NP account, instructing the seller to transfer the domain. ..... yes, yes, I know seller must have had received same instructions from the Escrow.com by email ........ if so why the need to mention the instructions again here?! ummm .....
@Eric_Lyon I hope NP does verification for registrar and escrow NP accounts! If someone opens an account like this, a newbie might not realize it and might suffer a loss of domain or money. It is not NP responsibility but would be nice if it was done. (
@Mauli Fry's account with just 1 post got my 'domain'sense tingling, why did Escrow.com suddenly go out of way to assist one seller on NP? Anyway, I am sure all is good...)