advice How do I avoid the following kind of scam on Escrow.com

[smaoui]

I was contacted by a buyer to buy on of my domains.

We chose escrow.com as an escrow service.

The buyer agreed to the terms on escrow.com and also wired the money already to escrow.com

Now I sent him the authorization code so that he can start transfering the domain to his registrar.

I am asking myself, however, what if he would give the auth code to a friend who would then register the domain on his own name instead of the buyer's name. The buyer would then tell escrow.com that he tried registering the domain himself but it already belonged to someone else (his scammer friend) and therefore was not possible. Escrow.com would then look into whois record and find that indeed it has been transferred to someone else and could refund the buyer (also he indirectly has the domain now) and I could not proof that I sent the auth code ONLY to the buyer as there are million ways i could have sent it also to million other people.

Or did I get something wrong?

 

[william]

I haven't used Escrow.com in a while, but perhaps they offer a service where you can push the domain name to their account first, instead of pushing it to the customer directly. I always wondered about similar loopholes, and I think this would make the most sense to prevent that.

 

[Embrand]

Escrow.com does offer the Domain Concierge Service where they will take ownership of the domain before delivering it to the buyer:

https://www.escrow.com/domains/domain-concierge

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

-5 for the OP lol
I guess he asked his question in the wrong forum

 

[Gabriel360]

I have not used Escrow.com for a domain transaction. But I've used Dan and other domain name market places.

One way they prevent this kind of scam is to create a thread for each transaction. The auth code is communicated through that thread.

Only you, the market place and buyer would know what the auth code is.

 

[Namingfy]

I was contacted by a buyer to buy on of my domains.

We chose escrow.com as an escrow service.

The buyer agreed to the terms on escrow.com and also wired the money already to escrow.com

Now I sent him the authorization code so that he can start transfering the domain to his registrar.

I am asking myself, however, what if he would give the auth code to a friend who would then register the domain on his own name instead of the buyer's name. The buyer would then tell escrow.com that he tried registering the domain himself but it already belonged to someone else (his scammer friend) and therefore was not possible. Escrow.com would then look into whois record and find that indeed it has been transferred to someone else and could refund the buyer (also he indirectly has the domain now) and I could not proof that I sent the auth code ONLY to the buyer as there are million ways i could have sent it also to million other people.

Or did I get something wrong?

First of all 'this is NOT SCAM on Escrow .com' as your title says, at this point.

The purpose of using Escrow is to transfer money and asset 'via' the Escrow Party(like Escrow .com, Dan, etc.).
Once the buyer sent money to Escrow, you only need to provide your domain ownership control to the Escrow Party.
Escrow Party will transfer the domain to the buyer and the money to the seller.
You've instead sent the domain ownership control (auth code), directly to the buyer, bypassing Escrow party, which is an erroneous action. Hence, Escrow party is not liable to send funds to you and has no control over buyer's action, even if buyer could be a scammer.