Escrow...

[SimonCC]

Please forgive me for going off topic, but im desperate for help. Im selling an extra t42 and some of the buyers are insisting i use Escrow. Has anyone used this service before, if so, can people tell me how reliable they are, is there a risk that i might not get paid by Escrow etc etc.

Thanks.

[cj3209]

Use only www.escrow.com and not anything else as I've heard of many fake 'escrow' companies. Also, the buyer usually pays for the service.

I've sold a notebook using www.escrow.com and it went well.

Good luck!

[SimonCC]

for the benefit of the forum i would like to say that i was nearly conned recently, luckily i had read cj3209's post. The guy wanted me to trade through 'Escrow' - only it wasnt Escrow, it was a fake site, here is the adress of it, bear it in mind so you never get caught out: www.ucs-trading.net. It makes people stick out as dodgy when they insist on Escrow - the Ebay director himself has stated that the most secure method of payment is credit card as you are automatically protected against fraud, so why anyone would wanna use this service is beyond me.

[gcchatel]

I would agree with this. I was a little tight on money when I got my thinkpad so i tried to get the cheapest deal. There was a listing on ebay and I contacted him and he told me all the great things about escrow and sent me to a site. I almost fell for it because the price was so great, but I checked the site out anyway. A usual give away for these types of scams is a yahoo or hotmail address for an escrow site that is supposed to do many transactions a day. If you type in the site name in google and it doesn't fill up the first page, it's definitely a fake. Another give away is only a few very good feedback comments for the ebay account.

The way these guys do it is steal an ebay account and quickly pad the feedback with some bogus transactions, they then set up a fake escrow site in hopes of finding some newbie. Once you fall in the trap, you never see your money again since Escrow is a third party system and the third party just went to the Bahamas with your money. BEWARE of escrow, as stated above only use escrow.com since it is an ebay affiliate.

I was able to shut the site down by referring the hosting company of what they were doing, but thousands of these sites show up every day hoping to find that one naive person.

Hope noone on here falls for the scam.

Gael

[cj3209]

Glad to hear that at least one person didn't fall for the scumbags who prey on innocent people.

www.escrow.com is a legitimate way to protect against fraud and I recommend it, especially for newbies or people who don't use credit cards.

[SimonCC]

anyone know how i can help to shut this website down, i cannot find who the website hosts are...

[cj3209]

I was just going to post but James (below) beat me to it!

[JHEM]

anyone know how i can help to shut this website down, i cannot find who the website hosts are...

Checking server [whois.opensrs.net]
Results:
Registrant:
Wing Lee
One Tiffany Place Apt 2H
Brooklyn, NY 11231
US

Domain name: UCS-TRADING.NET

Administrative Contact:
Lee, Wing mythxxx@cs.com
One Tiffany Place Apt 2H
Brooklyn, NY 11231
US
+1.7185960334
Technical Contact:
Com, Web info@web.com
6 Bethel Blvd.
Bethel, CT 06801
US
+1.2034482021 Fax: +1.2034482022

Registration Service Provider:
Web.com, support@web.com
1-203-448-2021
1-203-448-2022 (fax)
http://www.web.com
This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords,
DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions.

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 02-Dec-2004.
Record expires on 02-Dec-2005.
Record created on 02-Dec-2004.

Domain servers in listed order:
DNS2.WEB.COM 69.182.27.75
DNS1.WEB.COM 69.182.27.76

Domain status: ACTIVE

Regards,

James

[SimonCC]

WOW! thanks James, i have contacted the providers and alerted them to the site. Well done guys, its a small differance but it helps! It might be a good idea for anyone else who encounters these fake sites to name and shame them here - include the ebay user name of the person who tried to direct you to it also...