Very important and bad news by Escrow.com

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

It looks like Escrow.com is getting worse as the time goes by… After we all heard about Payoneer Escrow getting shut down so I started again Escrow.com which I had stopped due to their poor service.

I started couple of transactions at Escrow.com in a period of one week both for different domain and buyers. One of the transaction got completed on 30th August with last status “Inspection period ended, Buyer accepts merchandise.”

On 3rd September, I receive an email from their Payments department which says the following:

“Dear Seller, Unfortunately we do not support disbursement to accounts under First Century Bank, Payoneer accounts, or any other third party payments service. Please kindly select or add a new disbursement method. Please inform us when your disbursement information has been updated.”

This came as shocking to me. First, they should have at least informed all their clients that they no longer support disbursement to accounts under First Century Bank and/or Payoneer accounts. Secondly, even if they didn’t bother sending emails to every of their concerned client, they could’ve updated somewhere in the middle of transaction whenever they got aware of this new changes at their end. But their so-called great support team didn’t bother to inform and waited for the transaction to get completed.

I’m forced to complete my second transaction with them as the buyer just said yesterday that payment have been already made so I’m waiting for this to be completed as well. I just didn’t wanted to receive funds via wire that’s why I started Escrow.com to receive funds via Payoneer.

Instead of improving their service, they’re getting worse as the time is passing. Now I shall be looking for better alternatives who not only support payment via Payoneer but also other options like PayPal.

I’m sure there are plenty of domainers who likes to receive funds via Payoneer and are using Escrow.com so please make sure to either change your funds disbursement method or start using another better escrow service.

Now I’ve sent an email today for disbursing my funds via wire option which is the only one left for me to choose.

**NOTE** In past, I've received good amount of funds in Payoneer account/card through Escrow.com several times.

It would be great to hear from fellow domainers which escrow service is very reliable, provides great customer support and offers several disbursement methods including at least Payoneer.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I still don't understand what benefits to lose 1% via ACH with Payoneer and then on fees for their Payoneer Card...
Card from my bank is significantly cheaper for me.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

+ their reliability is not 100%.
Your Payoneer account may be blocked at any time with all funds.

 

[thekiller]

I still don't understand what benefits to lose 1% via ACH with Payoneer and then on fees for their Payoneer Card...
Card from my bank is significantly cheaper for me.

If you haven't used it how can you say that? Payoneer support direct bank transfers to local currency with just 2% fee, that is lowest than escrow.com after wire fees etc.

+ their reliability is not 100%.
Your Payoneer account may be blocked at any time with all funds.

They are 100% reliable, I'm using it since 2012. Haven't seen any issues. Most of us keep balance there because their card is in USD, becomes easy for us to Pay anyone using that card without incurring exchange fees etc.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

And what reason to lose 1% (ACH) + 2% (local currency)???
If I can receive my funds for the fixed 15 EUR directly to my domestic bank/card from Sedo...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Wire fee at escrow.com is also fixed at $20.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

They are 100% reliable, I'm using it since 2012. Haven't seen any issues.

You are not the only one their customer.
Were many cases with blocked Payoneer accounts.

 

[meslam479]

I heard about them closing the service but I'm not sure what you mean by they got shut down.

Can you point me to a direction where that information is?
I am very interested in reading it.

Here is my take on this whole thing......

I send a bill of sale to my client which they have to sign and send back. They fill in a credit card number and I process it in house. I do this for anything up to 50k assuming the client has the credit limit.

It costs me about 2% in processing fees but it gets me my money right away.
With the signed bill of sale I am protected for any chargebacks because it expressly mentions this is a final sale and the client agrees to no chargebacks.

I have been processing my own transactions for 5 years now and will probably not go back to any online service.

I had a few very big sales and processed those through my lawyer to assure everything went smoothly and we did those deals very similar to a real estate transaction.

I much prefer the one on one with my clients anyone who has their own credit card processing machine will probably agree that it is the best and easiest option. It is EXTREMELY important that you have a signed bill of sale where the client fills in the credit card information because that closes any loops. I once had a client attempt a chargeback and the money went to a holding account and once I provided the bill of sale the bank promptly released the funds back to me.

could you please tell us, what service you use for processing your own transactions

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

because their card is in USD

Your local bank doesn't allow to own card in USD???
I have no such problems in Ukraine.
3 currencies are supported by all banks: UAH/USD/EUR

 

[MapleDots]

could you please tell us, what service you use for processing your own transactions

I use a company called Elavon and I signed up through Costco in Canada, I know they offer it in the US as well. It really does not matter what company you go with but I got excellent rates by going with Costco Merchant and because I run 5 companies I use the same processing service for all of them.

I do 1.5 million per year from one online store alone and that costs me about $3000 per month in processing fees. So to add on a number of domain sales is no big deal for me and it makes it quite efficient.

 

[biggie]

never used payoneer

but seems they have some responsibility to inform users that they can't accept payments from escrow anymore.

imo…..

 

[meslam479]

You are not the only one their customer.
Were many cases with blocked Payoneer accounts.

I have received a few days ago an email from Payoneer, asking me to clarify what kind of business I do plus screenshot from my Paypal transactions, after receiving several transactions from PayPal, once I replied with the requested info they released my funds and all good

I use a company called Elavon and I signed up through Costco in Canada, I know they offer it in the US as well. It really does not matter what company you go with but I got excellent rates by going with Costco Merchant and because I run 5 companies I use the same processing service for all of them.

I do 1.5 million per year from one online store alone and that costs me about $3000 per month in processing fees. So to add on a number of domain sales is no big deal for me and it makes it quite efficient.

Thanks, I think domaining may be considered a small part of your business

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I have Verified Payoneer account for many years... I also had their card.
But I don't use them... because I really don't see any benefits... just waste of money and time, for me.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I heard about them closing the service but I'm not sure what you mean by they got shut down.

Can you point me to a direction where that information is?
I am very interested in reading it.

Here is my take on this whole thing......

I send a bill of sale to my client which they have to sign and send back. They fill in a credit card number and I process it in house. I do this for anything up to 50k assuming the client has the credit limit.

It costs me about 2% in processing fees but it gets me my money right away.
With the signed bill of sale I am protected for any chargebacks because it expressly mentions this is a final sale and the client agrees to no chargebacks.

I have been processing my own transactions for 5 years now and will probably not go back to any online service.

I had a few very big sales and processed those through my lawyer to assure everything went smoothly and we did those deals very similar to a real estate transaction.

I much prefer the one on one with my clients anyone who has their own credit card processing machine will probably agree that it is the best and easiest option. It is EXTREMELY important that you have a signed bill of sale where the client fills in the credit card information because that closes any loops. I once had a client attempt a chargeback and the money went to a holding account and once I provided the bill of sale the bank promptly released the funds back to me.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Interesting to know.

About your question regarding the shut down of Payoneer escrow service, below is the email message I'm sharing received on 11th July:

"It’s with sincere apologies that I’m sharing news that Payoneer is discontinuing our escrow business, and have attached a termination notice of our agreement as part of the process. While we have been excited and honored to service customers and partners like yourself, after careful review of our product portfolio have decided to commit our focus to other areas of the Payoneer business.

If we can be of help to successfully transition our relationship to other Payoneer products that might support your business, please let us know. We offer a variety of money transfer services such as virtual bank accounts and invoicing with credit card and bank transfer payments and would be happy to support exploration of our services.

We know the transition away from Payoneer Escrow may not be easy, but we are here to lend guidance and flexibility where possible. Thank you for your business to this point and understanding of our situation. We’ve appreciated all you’ve done in partnership with Payoneer."

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Seems I was out of the loop and missed this news... what happened? Shut down by whom? Or was this Payoneer's own decision to discontinue their escrow service?

Why not set up an offshore company in a business friendly jurisdiction (like Hong Kong) and accept payments with few limitations? Not to mention, tax free

You may check here - https://www.namepros.com/threads/ve...ews-by-escrow-com.1098910/page-2#post-6882297

About tax free, domain income in my country is already tax free

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

And what reason to lose 1% (ACH) + 2% (local currency)???
If I can receive my funds for the fixed 15 EUR directly to my domestic bank/card from Sedo...

There could be many reasons. Main reason I could see for people living in Pakistan is we don't have PayPal and cannot open an account so receiving funds in Payoneer is best way in order to re-use back somewhere on internet rather than receiving funds via wire and send via wire again for any big domain purchase..

 

[meslam479]

You may check here - https://www.namepros.com/threads/ve...ews-by-escrow-com.1098910/page-2#post-6882297

About tax free, domain income in my country is already tax free

at least we get to benefit from our developing countries that way

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

never used payoneer

but seems they have some responsibility to inform users that they can't accept payments from escrow anymore.

imo…..

I think it's the responsibility of Escrow.com to inform their clients that they no longer support of sending funds to Payoneer accounts.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I also can't receive PayPal in Ukraine. PayPal doesn't work here in full.
I can only send it.
But this factor is not a reason for me to use various intermediaries like Payoneer...
Because SWIFT works smoothly... I receive my money within ~24h.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I also can't receive PayPal in Ukraine. PayPal doesn't work here in full.
I can only send it.
But this factor is not a reason for me to use various intermediaries like Payoneer...
Because SWIFT works smoothly... I receive my money within ~24h.

At least you can send... We cannot even open an account

 

[frank-germany]

I tried in past for receiving funds in Payoneer but they don't send that way.

you can give them any account numbers to send money to

try to open a moneybooker account ( skill )


you could also use your coinbase account recieve funds
( not tested )

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

so receiving funds in Payoneer is best way in order to re-use back somewhere on internet rather than receiving funds via wire and send via wire again for any big domain purchase..

In realtime mode via online banking - I can move funds from my bank account to my card from this bank (without commission)...
This is impossible in PK?

 

[MapleDots]

@AbdulBasit.com

In your opening post you said payoneer was shut down and that is were the confusion lays. I think we all understand that Payoneer decided to shut down the service but saying they were shut down makes it look like there was an outside entity at play.

I was just clarifying that part because I know they decided to shut down and I have not heard of anyone forcing a shut down on them. I just wanted to make sure I was not missing anything with the way it was phrased.

After we all heard about Payoneer Escrow getting shut down

 

[wizard]

escrow.com has always been bad would never use them such a bad service

 

[golan]

but seems they have some responsibility to inform users that they can't accept payments from escrow anymore.

It's other way around. Payoneer can't care less whether Escrow decides to stop sending money to them, or not. It's on Escrow.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Payoneer can't care less whether Escrow decides to stop sending money to them, or not. It's on Escrow.

Payoneer can also block/reject the incoming payment...
They monitor all such transactions... and don't accept them from anybody and from anywhere.