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It is hard to believe that we are still talking about this case, but indeed $42K is life-changing money for many people. NetSol was once a mighty registrar. Those days are long-gone and I find it hard to believe that there are NamePros members who still use them, other than for promo domains where they probably hope to not get abused on the way out. However, there are some really old domains on NetSol. Some of us remember paying $70 per year for a .COM back when NetSol had the monopoly. Things changed.I lose $42,000 on an escrow.com transaction as pdd.com, help please.
As for this specific case, this is case where any competent escrow agent would have fully insulated the buyer from getting defrauded. There is actually a very major design flaw in how most escrow transactions are conducted in the domain name industry. The typical counterparties are:
Buyer
Seller
Escrow agent
Broker
Registrar
That is a total of up to 5 counterparties, each of why can be declared liable to each other in the course of a transaction. In most cases, there is no purchase and sale agreement, nor a posted Terms of Service governing the relationship with one or more counterparties. It is of course a recipe for chaos in the event that there is a perceived default by one of the counterparties. I have seen cases, including Gab.com, where there was also a Domain Lender with a partially paid off leaae in the mix of a transaction.
At Epik.com, we designed the "escrow" process around the registrar. There is essentially no counterparty risk assuming the buyer uses a bank transfer or major crypto to complete their purchase. For domains registered at Epik, we can even do these escrow transactions without fee. Why? Because there is no risk. The risk comes in when the domain is at another registrar, or where the buyer is using a credit card or PayPal where there is a chargeback risk. In this case there should also be a fee to underwrite that risk.
For anyone not aware, Escrow has become a material business for Epik. The buyer and seller are both contracting with Epik. The seller provides the disbursement instructions, which can be multi-party, e.g. broker, lender and registrant. And for the moment, Epik.com is still the only escrow agent -- which is legally defined as a neutral, trusted 3rd party -- to serve as trusted intermediary. Proceeds from sales can also be held at Epik and spent tax-free on like-for-like domain assets.
More here: https://www.epik.com/services/escrow/
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