question Escrow.com took weeks to send my wire after closing. Am I the only one?

[Escrow Payment Delay]

Has anyone else experienced long delays receiving funds after an Escrow.com transaction has closed?

I recently went through a (six-figure) transaction where it took weeks to receive my wire after all conditions were met. The explanations I got from support didn't add up, and when I started looking into it, I found complaints going back years - on this forum, on Trustpilot, on BBB, on Reddit.

I'm trying to understand how widespread this is. I've set up paymentdelays.org to collect experiences from people who've had similar issues with escrow payment delays.

Not looking to start a class action or anything like that - just trying to document the pattern and figure out whether this is something regulators should know about.

If you've experienced a delayed disbursement from Escrow.com, I'd appreciate hearing from you. A few things that would be especially helpful to know:

- How long did it take to receive funds after your transaction closed?
- Was it a domestic or international wire?
- Did Escrow.com give you a reason for the delay?
- Were you given any payment references (like a wire confirmation) that your bank couldn't trace?

You can reach me through the contact email at paymentdelays.org, or reply here. Happy to keep things confidential if preferred.

Thanks.

 

[jberryhill]

just trying to document the pattern and figure out whether this is something regulators should know about.

I would recommend against people giving details of their confidential financial transactions to some anonymous dude on the internet. Reporting second hand stories to regulators is pointless anyway, unless you represent the people in question. But regulators aren't generally interested in hearsay.

If an escrow provider has made a false statement to you in the course of performing an escrow, then you should proceed to report it and provide the backup documentation. In this instance the relevant license information is:

INTERNET ESCROW SERVICES, INC. (ESCROW.COM)

License Number 9631867

And the online complaint form for the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation is:

https://dfpi.ca.gov/submit-a-complaint/

There's no need for anyone else to collect those.

 

[URL Stream]

I would recommend against people giving details of their confidential financial transactions to some anonymous dude on the internet

Dear Alarmist,

There’s no reason for concern.

OP explicitly states in their TOS that you’re safe with them.

In fact, you should immediately contract a lawyer in anticipation of a defamation suit.

 

[johnn]

Are you working for an Escrow company and trying to bad mouth Escrow.com hoping you get more customers from Escrow?
Your post does not make any sense especially when you are willing to spend the time to create a website to ask people to tell bad services from Escrow.
What's your motivation?

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

I don't need anyone to share any personal information. I don't need your name, your transaction number, or anything identifiable.

All I need is stories. Whether that has happened to you, how long did it take to finally get your money, and whether Escrow.com gave your untraceable/fake transaction number as they did for me.

The motivation is exactly to raise a complaint with the regulator. Not just DFPI, but other relevant state regulators and Australian regulator (their parent company).

The problem with submitting complaints to regulators is that they ignore individual complaints. A single unhappy customer does not trigger any action by a regulator.

If, however, I can state that this is something more than a single operational mistake - that it seems to be a systemic issue/fraud because I found 100 people online that experienced similar problems, the regulators will have to take it a bit more seriously. Ignoring a single complaint is easy and risk-free for them. Ignoring a comprehensive, objective, complaint which also raises a valid suspicion of some systemic issue, cannot be ignored.

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

And to explain a bit more:

I had issues with my payment. Which wouldn't be a bit problem because we know things can go wrong with international wire transfers. It's what Escrow was telling me:

"my bank is holding the payment" - Not true - my bank never saw the payment.

"we forgot to put the address in the transaction. Because we never have to do that. Your bank is asking for it" - Not true - AML travel rules mean that the address always has to be included. Corresponding banks in the US would reject it automatically (within minutes, not weeks), if it would be without an address.

"because the address is missing, we have to wait week+ for the funds to be returned to us before we can try again" - Not true - if the issue is a missing address, there is a clear, established, formal process of the corresponding bank/recipient bank sending back a well-defined structured message requesting missing information. They don't just return the payment 10 days later without any other attempt to resolve it.

Most suspicious was that Escrow gave me, after days of chasing them, an UETR number for my transaction. UETR is a unique identifier that is created the moment a transaction enters the international SWIFT payment network and it can be used to track a status of the payment (forever). Multiple banks tried to use that UETR to track down the payment and they all said that this transaction does not exist. The transaction that Escrow claimed has reached my bank and is being held by my bank, was provably never actually sent.

----------

A transaction taking many weeks to reach the recipient is already a breach of their fiduciary duty. But in some extreme cases it could potentially be explained by some real operational issues. The delay combined with all these false claims and untraceable transaction numbers, makes me think that it is a systemic, organized, purposeful process designed to keep the float in their bank as large as possible.

And my motivation is that someone, i.e. the regulator, should investigate this. I want to put together a file and hand it over to regulators (instead of single unhappy customer complaint), and hope that they will do their job.

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

Are you working for an Escrow company and trying to bad mouth Escrow.com hoping you get more customers from Escrow?
Your post does not make any sense especially when you are willing to spend the time to create a website to ask people to tell bad services from Escrow.
What's your motivation?

No. Other than this thread I will not post any other complaints about Escrow.com (and definitely not promote any other firm).

I now better explained my motivation in other posts in this thread. But in short, I can't make any definitive claims of Escrow.com doing anything wrong. I believe, however, that there are sufficient reasons for a regulator to investigate Escrow.com practices. All I want to do is to submit a more substantial file to the regulators and try to motivate them to investigate it. Because it's the right thing to do.

I won't get the results of the investigation. Even if they find some issues, the regulators will likely quietly force them to improve their processes and we'll never know whether my suspicions were warranted or not. The only result we can hope for is that Escrow.com will become better and take better care with their customers' money. Which would benefit us all.

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

I would recommend against people giving details of their confidential financial transactions to some anonymous dude on the internet. Reporting second hand stories to regulators is pointless anyway, unless you represent the people in question. But regulators aren't generally interested in hearsay.

If an escrow provider has made a false statement to you in the course of performing an escrow, then you should proceed to report it and provide the backup documentation. In this instance the relevant license information is:

INTERNET ESCROW SERVICES, INC. (ESCROW.COM)

License Number 9631867

And the online complaint form for the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation is:

https://dfpi.ca.gov/submit-a-complaint/

There's no need for anyone else to collect those.

Nobody asked for any confidential details.

The four questions can be briefly replied without giving any identifiable details:
- How long did it take to receive funds after your transaction closed?
- Was it a domestic or international wire?
- Did Escrow.com give you a reason for the delay?
- Were you given any payment references (like a wire confirmation) that your bank couldn't trace?

 

[fka1080405]

A transaction taking many weeks to reach the recipient is already a breach of their fiduciary duty.

Escrow.com handles ~$1bn in transactions per year, tens of thousands of transactions each month, a mistake (or 2 or 10 or 200) doesn't really speak to a "breach of their fiduciary duty". A licensed escrow company is not expected to act perfectly, only to act with integrity. Suggesting that they're intentionally delaying transactions for their own financial ends is nonsense given they are both a public and a profitable business.

Yes, Escrow.com is slow as molasses compared to the unlicensed escrow services for domain names (e.g: Afternic, Spaceship) but that's the price we pay to use a licensed service. If you're unhappy with the service you received, you don't need to complain to a disinterested regulator, you can pick one of the licensing bodies they're licensed by with a complaints procedure.

Anyway, Escrow.com has a well earned reputation from handling millions of transactions over decades, they're a cornerstone of the industry, trusted by everyone. If they were engaging in any sort of coordinated malfeasance, it would have come to light long ago.

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

Escrow.com handles ~$1bn in transactions per year, tens of thousands of transactions each month, a mistake (or 2 or 10 or 200) doesn't really speak to a "breach of their fiduciary duty". A licensed escrow company is not expected to act perfectly, only to act with integrity. Suggesting that they're intentionally delaying transactions for their own financial ends is nonsense given they are both a public and a profitable business.

Yes, Escrow.com is slow as molasses compared to the unlicensed escrow services for domain names (e.g: Afternic, Spaceship) but that's the price we pay to use a licensed service. If you're unhappy with the service you received, you don't need to complain to a disinterested regulator, you can pick one of the licensing bodies they're licensed by with a complaints procedure.

Anyway, Escrow.com has a well earned reputation from handling millions of transactions over decades, they're a cornerstone of the industry, trusted by everyone. If they were engaging in any sort of coordinated malfeasance, it would have come to light long ago.

Great. So let's make them even better.

 

[johnn]

This is the most nonsense thread that I have ever seen.
You expect people send you the information because the DELAY in payment?
Are you hoping that some people are not smart and send you their PERSONAL information?
I got emails about this every day. It's called phishing.
Otherwise No one would spend the time to collect the information like this.
People do not fall into the Trap!!!

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

This is the most nonsense thread that I have ever seen.
You expect people send you the information because the DELAY in payment?
Are you hoping that some people are not smart and send you their PERSONAL information?
I got emails about this every day. It's called phishing.
Otherwise No one would spend the time to collect the information like this.
People do not fall into the Trap!!!

Before you talk nonsense, you should actually read the thread. Nobody needs to send me any personal details, not transaction information, no name. As I said many times

 

[biggie]

But in short, I can't make any definitive claims of Escrow.com doing anything wrong. I believe, however, that there are sufficient reasons for a regulator to investigate Escrow.com practices.

Hi

if you can’t make any definitive claims of Escrow.com doing anything wrong, then why should they be investigated?

why waste a regulator’s time with a fruitless investigation?

how would you feel if we had the .org registry investigate you and your website’s malicious attempt to discredit a business and for soliciting documentation to assist with those efforts.

just saying/

imo….

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

Hi

if you can’t make any definitive claims of Escrow.com doing anything wrong, then why should they be investigated?

why waste a regulator’s time with a fruitless investigation?

how would you feel if we had the .org registry investigate you and your website’s malicious attempt to discredit a business and for soliciting documentation to assist with those efforts.

just saying/

imo….

Wow. I can make a definitive claim that they failed in their fiduciary duty with me and that they lied to me.

I also have by now 80 other people who experienced similar problems.

And that is EXACTLY what the regulators, and licensing, and audit, and the whole assurance system is for - to protect the public. And their job is to investigate these things.

How is that in any way comparable? Anyone can investigate me if they want. But I am not holding a license and tens of millions of dollars of someone elses' money. What a ridiculous comparison!

 

[LDJ]

Has anyone else experienced long delays receiving funds after an Escrow.com transaction has closed?

I recently went through a (six-figure) transaction where it took weeks to receive my wire after all conditions were met. The explanations I got from support didn't add up, and when I started looking into it, I found complaints going back years - on this forum, on Trustpilot, on BBB, on Reddit.

I'm trying to understand how widespread this is. I've set up paymentdelays.org to collect experiences from people who've had similar issues with escrow payment delays.

Not looking to start a class action or anything like that - just trying to document the pattern and figure out whether this is something regulators should know about.

If you've experienced a delayed disbursement from Escrow.com, I'd appreciate hearing from you. A few things that would be especially helpful to know:

- How long did it take to receive funds after your transaction closed?
- Was it a domestic or international wire?
- Did Escrow.com give you a reason for the delay?
- Were you given any payment references (like a wire confirmation) that your bank couldn't trace?

You can reach me through the contact email at paymentdelays.org, or reply here. Happy to keep things confidential if preferred.

Thanks.

Hello,

My initial payment through escrow took two months due to the verification of the buyer's payment. Additionally, all the major US bank accounts I provided for the payout were rejected. However, the support team was quite helpful and advised me on alternative fintech banks to consider. The issues with my bank took over a month to resolve, which was quite frustrating. I felt disheartened by the delay, but I understand that it is a necessary measure to combat the prevalent fraudulent activities.

Nevertheless, with all due respect, I believe you have ample time to create a domain name and conduct research on payment delays. It seems more prudent to focus on finding solutions rather than just researching, and establishing a domain for this purpose seems to be quite an extensive undertaking. Regardless, I understand that you are still young and have plenty of time ahead of you.

If I have said anything offensive, please do not take it to heart.

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

Hello,

My initial payment through escrow took two months due to the verification of the buyer's payment. Additionally, all the major US bank accounts I provided for the payout were rejected. However, the support team was quite helpful and advised me on alternative fintech banks to consider. The issues with my bank took over a month to resolve, which was quite frustrating. I felt disheartened by the delay, but I understand that it is a necessary measure to combat the prevalent fraudulent activities.

Nevertheless, with all due respect, I believe you have ample time to create a domain name and conduct research on payment delays. It seems more prudent to focus on finding solutions rather than just researching, and establishing a domain for this purpose seems to be quite an extensive undertaking. Regardless, I understand that you are still young and have plenty of time ahead of you.

If I have said anything offensive, please do not take it to heart.

Thank you for the nice and constructive response. For a change.

Yes, some delays are understandable. That was not the case for me. And for some of the other stories I heard.

I did receive my money eventually. So my immediate problem is solved. The reason I am doing this is because it's the right thing to do. If they are doing everything right and my case was a rare exception, then no problem. If they e.g. outsourced all of their payments operations to some cheap offshore destination without the right skills, and are not actively monitoring for compliance with relevant laws and regulations, then they deserve a slap on the wrist from their regulator and they need to invest a bit in improving their processes.

I'm kind of doing this for all your benefit - I'm not a domainer and will never use them again. But I believe that something is dodgy there and that the regulators should check them out.

And my day to day job is actually in AML/financial crime compliance, so I have the advantage of knowing how regulators operate and what information they would need.

 

[johnn]

Interesting to know your job is AML/financial crime compliance.

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

Interesting to know your job is AML/financial crime compliance.

Yes. And to clarify, by that I am not even implying that Escrow is doing anything wrong in my area of expertise. That's not even remotely what I'm saying.

But it's relevant only because I work with various flavors of financial regulators daily and I know how they operate. I know that a complaint by a single unhappy customer is irrelevant. A well-written complaint that points to a potential systemic issue, with at least some evidence, will be considered much more thoroughly. That's the only connection to my day work.

 

[johnn]

What do you try to get out from your website except making Escrow looks bad?
Normally Criminal Compliance Agent would not do that.
Be honest and tell us what do you want to do???

 

[Escrow Payment Delay]

What do you try to get out from your website except making Escrow looks bad?
Normally Criminal Compliance Agent would not do that.
Be honest and tell us what do you want to do???

My website does not mention Escrow.com even once.

And even my statements here, I believe, are measured and much more objective and non-accusatory than if I would be just an annoyed customer trying to hurt their reputation.

Again, I am trying to get as many stories as I can - without personally identifiable details - so I can put together a more comprehensive file for the relevant regulators. Regulators can then, hopefully, ask for some feedback from them and dig a bit deeper into it. If they uncover some systemic issues, they will order them to fix it. If they don't find anything, even better for them. I will never get any results of this investigation or any compensation.

I will, hopefully, get some satisfaction that I used a small part of my experience to make things better.

I didn't know that you are in the same industry and that you know better than me what would a "Criminal Compliance Agent" do.

Why do you have such a problem with me soliciting some feedback from the community? What is it to you? Do you work for Escrow.com?