During the closing of a domain acquisition at Escrow.com today, I was informed of a pleasant update to how credit card payments are handled.
Until now, when making a credit card payment, one had to fax or email a filled out form, with the credit card scanned and another piece of identification – or the back of the same card – attached.
The process was to verify physical possession of the card, which cuts down on potential fraud.
When I called the Escrow.com support to confirm and finalize that part, I noticed that my payment was already approved.
According to customer service, the faxing or emailing of that authorization form to Escrow.com has been phased out, and that particular step and page will soon be removed from the web site.
Definitely a welcome improvement on the already stellar service at Escrow.com.
Strange, as it still shows in their FAQ, unless you are now a registered user?
Tom – I was told that the web site will soon be updated to reflect just that: no more forms to fax. 🙂
Yeah that part was a really big drag and caused me some unhappiness some years ago, so I’ve avoided it like the plague since. Escrow.com is still the gold standard, though. I wonder how this EscrowHill one is, never used them yet.
Thanks for the update.
That’s great change by Escrow.com and that will bring more business for them. Good job!
Acro,
The worst part of a close was going through Escrow.com; whether it be from the buyer or the seller’s point of view, as it was agonizing for both parties.
It was a pain as the buyer to wait for the seller to submit the authorization form and it was a pain as the seller to submit the identical document with minor changes (in some cases, multiple times a day or week).
Escrow.com is definitely the gold standard and I assume a lot more domainer’s will be using them for transactions in smaller amounts as a safeguard as opposed to PayPal or other merchants due to this move.
Ideally, money and domains will exchange hands much quicker with this revised method of authorizing payments.
-David
We are always looking for ways to improve our offering. Your suggestions are much appreciated. Thank you for your business and your trust.
Brandon
Brandon,
last few transactions, I have had some real issues when a domain is being auth codes from godaddy to name.com for instance. The buyer might move in with privacy enabled, or their whois does not match. Many times once the buyer has the name, and their Credit Card has been charged, or money has been wired they feel they are done with the transaction.
Not going back in, and accepting the transaction, and leaving the seller to go back, and forth with escrow support to try and figure it out. There has to be a better way to streamline this a bit more, where the seller isn’t always chasing to prove their transfer.
We see, unfortunately too often, that buyers are not motivated to complete the transaction once the domain transfer is complete. In an effort to track the activity and changes in the registrant information, Escrow.com does record the registrant details when the transaction is initiated, again periodically during the course of the transaction.
Sellers can help expedite the process by forwarding to Escrow.com any confirmation of the transfer provided by the registrar, or any record of the authorization code or username and password being transferred to the buyer. We can start the buyer’s inspection period based on that information should the buyer not update the status of the transaction themselves.
EscrowHill.com offers our premier service where the domain name is placed in escrow after the funds are secured. This eliminates the need for a review period. As soon as the domain is received, the funds are sent to the seller and the domain pushed to the buyer. We encourage you to visit EscrowHill.com and try our services.
Escrow.com has provided such a service when requested by both parties on high value transactions. We are an independent licensed, bonded, insured and government regulated escrow company compliant with Escrow Law and the money transmission laws of the United States. We strongly suggest you look for the same legal compliance when choosing an escrow company.
I had a client who was confused about this, as it is still showing on the website, but there is no form for them to download, so they get confused, not sure if I am confused or the client, any updates?