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

 

[pokainc]

What's going to happen is that godaddy and sedo are going to make money and escrow will lose clients...
Clients already sometimes said I prefer to buy it through Godaddy despite the 20% extra fee... good luck convincing buyers to send photo ID and sensitive info. What about corporations.. they have to send private corporate files?
First ICANN with their "security" policies, now this...
"you want to buy a domain, sure you need to offer your daughter for marriage first"

 

[DNBro]

i have completed verification using bank statement and tax id, and haven't found anything wrong with that as a seller, these details are already with escrow.com even before submitting documents.

 

[mad409]

Here's my 2 cents on this change. I agree Escrow.com does have the obligation to verify, follow the know your customer law per domainers receiving money.

I don't agree if these requirements are enforced if an end user is making a purchase with a credit card transaction. Reason: If that were the case every site you visited online would require documents before you could purchase anything, not gonna happen.

So my suggestion is for them to require verification from the receiving party but if the end user is paying by credit card this would not be a requirement.

There's no laws I'm aware of that would require someone making a purchase online with a credit card to provide identification documents..

If this would work for them all we have to do is tell the end user to pay by CC.

Addition: Debit Card too...

 

[Kate]

I am wondering if the alternative shouldn't be to be able to send the documents by post. Then Escrow.com would keep the documents offline in a cabinet.
Concerns about digital breaches are completely valid. Even the OPM and NSA cannot keep their sensitive data secure.

I am irritated too, because those KYC & money laundering regulations are getting ridiculous and downright intrusive.

As said above, the problem is not the sellers, but they buyers who may balk at the requirements and kill the deal as a result, unless you can find an alternative to salvage the transaction...

In spite of this I strongly advise people to be very careful when using services that are not licensed, bonded, insured and government-audited. Caveat emptor.

Alternative to escrow: list your domain names on your own market place, and get your own merchant account. It doesn't protect against chargebacks, but these shouldn't happen too often. And you are still free to vet your customers (ie ask for a verifiable phone number).

 

[FairTrial]

Hi,

I work for Transpact.com - Europe's leading escrow company (we handle many domain transactions).

Let me give a bit of inside information from our point of view on customer identification and verification.

We've led the way on requiring customer ID verification for years, for larger transactions.
The reason is purely down to anti-money laundering and counter terrorist-financing laws, to prevent escrow services from being used to launder the proceeds of crime, and prevent the funding of terrorism.

We do not require these intrusive checks for our own purposes in any way whatsoever as we have the customer’s money, which is what counts - we would very happily ditch the checks, but they are imposed purely due to Government regulation (we have our own other security checks).

Europe (the EU) has been much stricter on the actual implementation of these rules than the USA, but it looks like the USA is finally tightening up and implementing the letter of the law.
It is surprising that it has taken so long, as escrow is a known vector for terrorist financing and money laundering. For example, the 2010 assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was reportedly funded through escrow arrangements.

Over the years, we have turned away much business to other escrow companies, when customers refuse to supply us detailed information strictly confidentially and highly securely (we never, ever divulge this information - except by written Court or Government Agency Order), and store the information highly securely and strictly confidentially.
In addition, many companies trace corporate or trust ownership through tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands or Cayman Islands, making true customer verification very difficult - so we do not deal with those clients, again turning them away.

One interesting development is that the legal definition of money-laundering is about to change in June, to include money which has had tax evaded.

So any escrow service that makes payment to or from a firm that is not paying its taxes fully may be prosecuted by the authorities.

Why are escrow services targeted this way ?
Well, banks and money remitters are heavily regulated this way, and escrow services are conditional money remitters! Escrow services effectively remit a payment on to the seller if X occurs, and back to the buyer if Y occurs (X and Y being the successful or non-successful transfer of the domain in the case of a domain transaction - X and Y need to be fully defined for each transaction).

Sorry for the long diatribe, but I thought this might prove useful to the questioners.

The fight against terrorist financing and money laundering looks like it is only going to increase as world events ratchet-up, and Governments correspondingly tighten regulations.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I don't understand at all how the domain aftermarket is linked with terrorists...
They really sell and buy domains???
Some kind of paranoia...

 

[Jackson Elsegood]

I am wondering if the alternative shouldn't be to be able to send the documents by post. Then Escrow.com would keep the documents offline in a cabinet.

We do have a large safe if you decide to do this

 

[FairTrial]

I don't understand at all how the domain aftermarket is linked with terrorists...
They really sell and buy domains???
Some kind of paranoia...

It is purely the payment .

Most transactions are completely innocent.
But some payments may be less innocuous.

It is the payment (not the domain transaction) that is heavily regulated.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

ALL USD-transactions in the world are monitored by default...

 

[Addison]

Answer, please:

@Jackson Elsegood, is verification required immediately or is there a grace period before it'll prevent us from using Escrow.com as usual?

 

[Nerevar]

Those regulations, whether EU or US, are business-killers. And then people wonder why economic growth is so close to 0%.

 

[kriss05]

In recent transaction Escrow.com demanded me to make international call from my phone number on file which costed me about 15 bucks just to confirm my identity (despite I used Escrow.com for years), and now this new layer of inanity. Do they realize we live in capitalist world? Well, I switched to Sedo's external escrow service with 3% commission fee and now enjoy their customer support and opportunity to forward the auth codes via Sedo support which makes me feel safer that sending them directly to the buyer as in case of Escrow.com transaction.

 

[Kate]

 

[FairTrial]

Those regulations, whether EU or US, are business-killers. And then people wonder why economic growth is so close to 0%.

To be fair, we have designed our Transpact.com checks so that they take no longer than 50 seconds in most cases. And they are one-off checks, since once identity is verified it does not require verification again. So these only occur once per client, on one transaction only (other transactions are unimpeded).

So hardly fair to say a 'business killer'.

As I said, would we like to ditch these checks - yes.
Can we - no (not without being carted off to jail).

The main reason clients don't want to provide the information is not the time taken (50 seconds is not worth complaining about).
It is the discomfort in knowing that your private information is stored secured and confidentially with another third party. People just do not like to share their private information - even if the information is sent to a heavily Government regulated secure financial firm. This has nothing to do with business.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Escrow.com papers...

 

[Bearded Goat]

@Jackson Elsegood

Did you send an email to your current Escrow.com customers to ask that they verify their account? Because I did not receive one and I am just now reading this mess. Also, if this is something that is necessary to continue to do business at Escrow.com, why is this need to verify NOT found anywhere in the account once logging in?

I just logged in to see if there was some sort of notice and found nothing. It makes no sense to post something in a message board instead of informing customers. Do ALL customers have to do this prior to completing a transaction?

Still can't believe you did not send any sort of notice out. Meaning, if I sell a domain today, does my buyer have to do all of this as well?

You need to make this visible in the account in a logical place that is obvious.

 

[main]

 

[Bearded Goat]

I didn't realize this was romper room

 

[Jackson Elsegood]

@Jackson Elsegood

Did you send an email to your current Escrow.com customers to ask that they verify their account? Because I did not receive one and I am just now reading this mess. Also, if this is something that is necessary to continue to do business at Escrow.com, why is this need to verify NOT found anywhere in the account once logging in?

I just logged in to see if there was some sort of notice and found nothing. It makes no sense to post something in a message board instead of informing customers. Do ALL customers have to do this prior to completing a transaction?

Still can't believe you did not send any sort of notice out. Meaning, if I sell a domain today, does my buyer have to do all of this as well?

You need to make this visible in the account in a logical place that is obvious.

We've got just over a million user accounts, so to avoid overwhelming the verification team we're displaying the request to verify your account to 50% of users. Once we lift that up to 100% I'll also reach out with an email to everyone, as well as an explainer in the banner next time you log in.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

So Escrow.com is US-company or not?
If US - the completed US-taxform (for foreigners as well) is required de jure but it is not asked by you de facto...

 

[alcy]

even if most domainers will go through this extra hassles, there is potential for many buyers not to want to do the same and this will simply result in many lost deals.

so many sellers will have no choice but to go elsewhere. even those that verify themselves. simply to preserve the sale.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Per my experience even without all these procedures - on my direct question to the buyers via which escrow they want to proceed (Sedo or Escrow.com) - in ~90% of cases Sedo was chosen.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

That's why I mainly used Escrow.com for Bulk-sales only (to other domainers).

 

[FairTrial]

So Escrow.com is US-company or not?
If US - the completed US-taxform (for foreigners as well) is required de jure but it is not asked by you de facto...

Jurgen,

I cannot speak for Escrow.com, but at Transpact.com we need to verify your identity - we have no need or desire to see your tax-form, and would request our clients not to send us such.

By the way, the identity of a corporation or trust includes the true ultimate beneficial owners (after corporate and trust structure is stripped out) together with those in actual day-to-day control of the entity.

I will leave Escrow.com to answer your question above.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

If we are talking in terms of US-law - then taxform is mandatory.