Escrow.com comes out top in survey once again.
Escrow.com is the best domain name escrow service, according Domain Name Wire’s survey of 400 domain name owners.
Escrow.com took nearly half of the vote.
1. Escrow.com 46%
2. Sedo 34%
3. Moniker 11%
4. EscrowDNS 5%
5. Afternic 4%
Escrow.com is fully licensed in all 50 United States to perform escrow transactions. The company was founded in 1999 by Fidelity National Financial, but has been privately held since May 2004. You can read Domain Name Wire’s interview with Escrow.com President Brandon Abbey here.
Relative newcomer EscrowDNS.com managed to debut at #4 with 5% of the vote. Moniker, which manages escrow for both its live auctions and numerous private party sales, was added to the list this year as well.
Escrow services operate in slightly different ways, but all help domain buyers and sellers protect the financial side of domain name transactions. Some escrow services take control of the domain names during the transaction while others manage only the funds. Once a domain is securely transferred, the funds are released to the seller.
Escrow fees typically run a few percentage points of the overall transaction value.
I am not getting this. As escrow.com does not do esrow for the domain, they only check whois, it would be so easy to fraud there (both can fraud – seller or buyer)
I agree – the way Escrow.com does the domain transactions is very insecure.
I don’t know, I’ve yet to hear from someone who got screwed by this. I’ve heard one person who got scammed by it, but Escrow.com made them whole. As long as Escrow makes you whole, I don’t see a problem with this method. And I’d always select a few day “inspection” period before the funds are released.
Andrew, any specific customer feedback or thought as to why Escrow.com ranked #1?
(we don’t really like to be #2 😉
Sam, I think the biggest difference is that Escrow.com’s service is automated. With Sedo’s service I have to send an email just to get a transaction started. Sedo has done a good job automating some of the steps of its process, but still has a way to go.
By the way, this survey was about escrow, not the sales process. So it’s just for people using Sedo to escrow domains not purchased at Sedo.
If Escrow.com doesn’t actually accept the domain into their own registrar account before transferring it to the purchaser(like Sedo does) then what is there to stop a fraudulent purchaser making sure the Whois reads as if they never received the domain? They then request their money back from Escrow.com, and they now have the domain and their money? Various posters on the Namepros forum have expressed similar concerns with this type of escrow.
I’ve never used escrow before but $1,000 + transactions, I guess it’s the smartest idea.
i’m about selling my domain. thank you for providing me this info 🙂