Escrow.com Is Now Asking For Photos of Personal Docs

[Cdomains]

Escrow/com Is Now Asking For Photos of Personal Documents.

I just logged in to Escrow/com and they are now asking for extensive verification including Photos or scans of ID's and other personal and business documents to be stored on their servers.

I have used them for years for all my transactions.

With all the hacks of servers happening around the world and security breaches exposing us to identity theft I have refused to give photos of my ID's and other documents to companies who request it.

I will not do business with Flippa for this reason.

I recently had my account frozen at a registrar that asked me for this and I refused.

Will you give photos of your personal ID's, bank records, etc to Escrow/com or will you use another service?

Personally, I think I am going to take my business somewhere else.

I am really disappointed about this after all these years.

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Related:

• New Escrow.com Account Verification Process

 

[Kate]

The irony about all those KYC rules is that they make us less secure, because the more you send documents over to third parties, the more you risk that they will fall in the hands of hackers or be misused for ID theft.
Many corporations have poor security and little incentive to beef up security until it's too late. Many of them outsource customer support to call centers overseas, that have high employee turnover and lax security.

But if there is one party to blame, it's your government. Nothing to do with terrorism or money laundering, governments wants to track your money and tax it (or confiscate it).

For sure this is going to be a putoff for some buyers, it's already hard enough to sell domain names. Escrow.com is popular because it's very simple to use even when you're dealing with inexperienced users.

PS: breaches are more frequent than people think because they often go unnoticed. Your data could already be for sale on the darknet.
PPS: I suspect that Escrow.com's systems are rather old: I've seen headers that indicate mail is sent through CDONTS (ASP).
PPPS: Outside the US more or more people don't trust US companies any longer due to widespread spying.

This recent development should incentivize domainers to incorporate if they haven't already. End users may be more willing to remit payment to an established corporation in good standing. Plus, there are some tax benefits available and asset protection too.

 

[wwwweb]

It has been stated that Escrow recently left a long standing relationship with Bank of America for Wells Fargo, which has been on the hot seat lately, and this could be causing a more urgent regulatory change.

As stated above buyers mainly compiled to using escrow as it was, easy, and straight forward.

Anytime anyone asks you for color scans of your buyers Id's, and utility bills, that is no longer the case. The first question they are doing to ask is why? Then when you give them, a long winded cut and paste answer, they are going to take a double take, and let you know they want no part in it, as how is this any different than going to Godaddy, and buying a reg fee domain, other than a different amount

I am not sure how making a payment for a product, or service with a credit card would require such documentation.

 

[dsant]

epik. com is a nice alternative

 

[wwwweb]

epik. com is a nice alternative

Don't they try to make you receive payment in epik bucks, cap on amounts? Do domains have to be at epik?

 

[Seasoned]

Wait, wells ? Seriously ? I seriously have such issues with WF that I have a seizure just seeing their name.
Hope that isn't true.
Anyway I already had to do the whole escrow process of verification and it was perfectly painless. Easy and
fast.
And it will be fantastic to offer paypal and credit card payment options to most customers.
It is much harder to get people to send wire transfers for websites to Escrow.com than to scan and email their ids to Escrow.com from the comfort of their home.

 

[Duomain]

It's acceptable for me to upload ID. But where could I find the proof of address written in Roman/English characters?

Is ESCROW kidding me? I'm from China. We use address in Chinese. Could anyone give me a hand here?

The verification team member has provided additional information:
Please submit the entirety of your proof of address. Also, make sure that it's written in Roman/English characters.

It's time to find an escrow alternative. Thank you guys for sharing. May try EPIK or Payoneer. But PayPal is my first choice for repeated users.

 

[ison]

It's acceptable for me to upload ID. But where could I find the proof of address written in Roman/English characters?

Is ESCROW kidding me? I'm from China. We use address in Chinese. Could anyone give me a hand here?

The verification team member has provided additional information:
Please submit the entirety of your proof of address. Also, make sure that it's written in Roman/English characters.

It's time to find an escrow alternative. Thank you guys for sharing. May try EPIK or Payoneer. But PayPal is my first choice for repeated users.

Comedy gold.

Hope you get this sorted out, @Duomain.

 

[kriss05]

It's acceptable for me to upload ID. But where could I find the proof of address written in Roman/English characters?

Is ESCROW kidding me? I'm from China. We use address in Chinese. Could anyone give me a hand here?

The verification team member has provided additional information:
Please submit the entirety of your proof of address. Also, make sure that it's written in Roman/English characters.

It's time to find an escrow alternative. Thank you guys for sharing. May try EPIK or Payoneer. But PayPal is my first choice for repeated users.

Oh my, does anybody at Escrow.com realize that the world is not limited to Roman/English characters. Chinese sellers/buyers are so huge part of market, and now they face such stupid issues.

 

[rentmynames]

Is ESCROW kidding me? I'm from China. We use address in Chinese. Could anyone give me a hand here?

The verification team member has provided additional information:
Please submit the entirety of your proof of address. Also, make sure that it's written in Roman/English characters.

LMFAO!

 

[Winfluence]

Are they requiring both seller and buyer to submit an ID? OR is it just the seller's ID that they want?

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Don't they try to make you receive payment in epik bucks, cap on amounts? Do domains have to be at epik?

0% for their domains and 1.5% for others.
You may receive your money via Wire or PayPal, some fee will be applied in both cases.
Regarding ACH - ask them directly, I don't know.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Are they requiring both seller and buyer to submit an ID? OR is it just the seller's ID that they want?

ALL accounts must be verified.

 

[wwwweb]

You guys notice how none of the blogs have picked this up, usually any little story gets covered 7 different way?

 

[Winfluence]

ALL accounts must be verified.

It's hard enough to get my clients to get to use Escrow with their old system of verifying the living shit out of everything. This will most certainly slow down the transaction process even further and frustrate my buyers. There is no way I could continue using Escrow, even if I wanted to. They are simply no longer an option...

 

[kriss05]

You guys notice how none of the blogs have picked this up, usually any little story gets covered 7 different way?

Yep, this situation is bias test for domain bloggers. Check their blogs for Escrow.com ads lol. This again makes Namepros very valuable place for domainers to stay.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

Anyone seen the two most recent posts on Escrow.com's facebook page? They have done everything to try to run that company into the ground since it was purchased......... I think they may have done it this time.
https://www.facebook.com/EscrowService/posts_to_page/

 

[pchip]

Not to derail the conversation, but I think it's worth noting again that DropCatch (bids over 59) and NameJet (bids over 2500) both require verification by Photo ID, to become a verified bidder.

 

[rentmynames]

Not to derail the conversation, but I think it's worth noting again that DropCatch (bids over 59) and NameJet (bids over 2500) both require verification by Photo ID, to become a verified bidder.

We are talking about the BUYERS. SELLERS doesn't care much, because they know who they are dealing with.

 

[pchip]

We are talking about the BUYERS. SELLERS doesn't care much, because they know who they are dealing with.

Of course, but some have expressed concern both ways, not just for the buyer.

Oh, and thanks for the caps on buyers and sellers, your comment makes more sense now.

 

[discobull]

Anyone seen the two most recent posts on Escrow.com's facebook page? They have done everything to try to run that company into the ground since it was purchased......... I think they may have done it this time.
https://www.facebook.com/EscrowService/posts_to_page/

They used to have people working there, but they've now replaced them all with cogs. When you phone in, you now speak to people who seemingly have no authority to do anything for you other than to communicate on your behalf to other "teams" and "departments". It's sort of like dealing with the cable company except that, in this case, it feels like there are maybe 5 people working there but each one of them is a department unto him/herself and each one is holed up in some private bunker where they can only be reached by email or carrier pigeon.

Here's an example. I did a deal with them using their concierge service. For those who don't know, the concierge service is where escrow.com takes possession of the domain instead of you transferring the domain directly to the buyer. After payment was approved, they asked me to push my domain from my GoDaddy account to their's. 2 minutes later, I was done. However, with GoDaddy the push doesn't complete until the receiver authorizes it. I waited a few hours, but no progress. So, I phoned in to speak to a rep and let him know that I've initiated the push. While we're on the phone, he logs into escrow.com's GoDaddy account and tells me that, yes, he sees my domain awaiting their approval.

Since he's logged into their GoDaddy account, and has access to all the transaction information from my escrow.com account, he knows that I've been instructed to push the domain to them and he see the domain sitting right there in front of him. So does he approve it? Nope. One mouse-click from him and we're done, yet, somehow, he can't approve it himself! Instead, he has to contact another "team" to do it. Naturally, that team is so backlogged that it takes them a day to get to it!

It's almost as if they redesigned their system to deliberately introduce inefficiency. Truly exasperating.

 

[TampaDomains]

Used escrow for 20+ transaction last year and logged in for the 1st time this year today to create a transaction. I did not see any notice like this. The only new change was, previously I would get a check mailed for free to avoid any fee but now they made Free ACH(Awesome) so I made that change. Completed the whole transaction today including closing statement. I love Escrow!

 

[creataweb]

Used escrow for 20+ transaction last year and logged in for the 1st time this year today to create a transaction. I did not see any notice like this. The only new change was, previously I would get a check mailed for free to avoid any fee but now they made Free ACH(Awesome) so I made that change. Completed the whole transaction today including closing statement. I love Escrow!

You might love them now...................but not later.

 

[pchip]

This recent development should incentivize domainers to incorporate if they haven't already. End users may be more willing to remit payment to an established corporation in good standing. Plus, there are some tax benefits available and asset protection too.

One of the best comments on this thread. In many ways, you don't necessarily need an escrow service, depending on the trust you have with who you're dealing with. The trust going both ways.

 

[creataweb]

One of the best comments on this thread. In many ways, you don't necessarily need an escrow service, depending on the trust you have with who you're dealing with. The trust going both ways.

Yep but for the new guys here that aint cheap to do in most places.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

We are talking about the BUYERS. SELLERS doesn't care much, because they know who they are dealing with.

As the seller, I certainly do care who has my bank statements, latest utility bills, faxes of my credit card and drivers license with photo........ Thats a formula for identity theft.