Avoid Fake Escrow Web Sites

When selling a product on eBay, and it is a physical product, sometimes you need to use an escrow web site. An escrow web site will guarantee that the transaction will follow as planned, meaning the seller will receive the money, and the buyer the product. This is done by retaining the money from the buyer, and keeping it, until the product is delivered, so that the buyer and seller are protected against fraudulent transactions.

Escrow web sites are often used when dealing with electronics, such as laptop computers, digital cameras, video cameras, but also when other products of great value are traded.

Unfortunately, the users that try to scam people at the eBay web site into providing them with the product, but not paying have discovered this, and have turned it into their own advantage. This is done by the creation of fake escrow web sites, that look exactly like the genuine ones, the only difference is that they are owned by the person that is performing the scam attempt, and not a legitimate escrow company.

When trying to scam a seller, the buyer will pretend that he will not use the regular web sites, because he has no trust in them, and that he only trusts a specific web site which he wants to be used as guarantee for the transaction. Also some times, the buyer will imply the reason that one specific escrow web site is charging a lower fee than the others, and that is the reason it should be used.

When a person will see such statements from a buyer, he or she should consider again if he wants to perform the transaction, or not perform it at all, unless an escrow web site that he has trust in will be used.

The fake escrow web sites look genuine, they will even allow you to create an account, and will send you a confirmation e-mail that the payment has been made. Some of them have some easy to detect flaws, because it would take too much time to create a perfect replica of the original:

- they do not have a toll free line, or if one is displayed, it is the wrong number;
- some of the pages are not complete, and some links do not work;
- if a person performs a whois on the domain, they will notice is has been recently created;
- they are hosted on free hosting accounts, or on well known hosting providers;
- they contain only static content;

In conclusion,it is better that eBay sellers, and buyers should stay away from such web sites and only use http://www.escrow.com, the only web site that is recommended by eBay. Doing that will ensure that the transactions will follow as planned, and they will not end up with no money, or paying and not receiving what they expected.