Escrow.comReviews 2,223

After I turned over funds, Escrow.com informed me that merchandise was shipped by SpeedPost and gave me a tracking number, not bothering to give me a link to the proper website for tracking. When I inquired, because the item was not found on the website linked to SpeedPost, Escrow.com told me not to worry, that it sometimes takes several days for the item to show up in tracking. The merchandise is a big-ticket item, and I was anxious to make sure it was on its way to me. I finally emailed customer service on the website linked to SpeedPost, and someone at SpeedPost took one look the tracking number and told me that I should be looking on the India Post website -- not SpeedPost. When I complained to Escrow.com, I got nothing but a bunch of condescending double talk. I spent three or four days checking and rechecking the SpeedPost website, trying to track my item -- three of four days of high anxiety, for no reason -- all because Escrow.com couldn't be bothered to pay attention to me, a customer who paid over $250 for their unservice.

I had to call and find out why I hadn't received my funds to my bank account and they told me that they messed up and never processed my payment. They tried to say it's because they moved their offices to San Francisco but I know they moved those offices long ago. In addition there were several times throughout the domain transfer process when they would lose my emails or just simply forget to initiate important events to keep the transaction process moving. It was terrible. Never again will I use Escrow.com. Here's my chat transcript from today "Hello,
I'm hoping you can help me find out where my money is.
Transaction #XXXXXXXXX
Lee: Hello!
Hello
Lee: Thank you for that. For verification, please provide your phone number and your registered email address associated with the transaction.
Lee: Thank you! Kindly hold on while I check on this.
Thanks
Lee: Thanks for waiting.
Lee: We have forwarded this concern to our finance team for processing.
Lee: Is there anything else that I can assist you with?
What do you mean?
Has the payment to my account been processed?
It should have been processed last week
Lee: We apologize for the inconvenience. We recently moved our headquarters to San Francisco and caused a little delay in processing out disbursement.
Okay, when will my payment be processed?
You had no problem releasing my domain to the buyer
That's why I'm on chat.
Because it's late.
And this whole process with Escrow.com has been a nightmare for me.
So I'd really just like you to send my money to my bank account
You guys never even started to process the payment did you?
Lee: It will now be in queue of our finance team. Once they approve it, it will take 3 business days to clear.
Ok, so you never started to process it last week like you should have?
Lee: Unfortunately, yes. Again apologies for the delay due to the recent movement of our headquarters.
That sounds like a bad excuse to me. Ok, this chat transcript is going to look great posted on every review site on the internet.
Your #1 job is to handle peoples money and property responsibly. And Escrow.com has failed miserably.
Have a good day."

I used escrow.com to do a transaction with a guy who was doing software work for me. Therefore i had to send cash to escrow.com. The transaction fell through and the transaction was cancelled. NOW escrow.com is holding the money ransom and will not refund and i dont have recourse with a credit card company because they made me pay cashier check. THESE GUYS ARE FRUAD! They have terrible customer service. If you can ever talk to anyone.

You are a fraud. I have informed the police in UK to look into it. Popular YouTube channel a friend of miens is processing a video of this whole situation, i have recorded my experience since start of sale till now. I have contacted buyer to work with me privately and also leave a input on this review. I find out escrow was sold so you could be the new scammers using the company reputation to its advantage. Shocking how i get flagged for what ever by this bull$#*! OFAC. You stories do not add up, you said the bank already sent money then OFAC held it but then your employee Dyan tells me they were instructed not to even send the money and the whole time you lot pretended you sent the money but my detail could've been wrong. You know what keep the $900 you scumbags because it will reflect your company success in the future with what i am about to do as the video will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. I will find all other sites and forums and leave reviews like this and get buyer to do so too. Unbelievable your support is a piece of $#*! as no one ever contacts back.

$#*! you and your company for 900$ you longed me off i probably wasted more on bills. Scum bags!

No one should use this service as it is bought by these scumbags and they are mugging the sellers!

UPDATE 2: I am updating my review to improve the star rating and clarify some things. First of all, apparently, the Buyer in my transaction made two mistakes. I'm still a bit annoyed that Escrow.com's customer service took so long to figure out one of the mistakes, especially when it was so easy to see. But my previously poor review needed to be upgraded because it was not all their fault. Should I receive my funds in a timely manner, I will upgrade the review again.

UPDATE 1: Edited to reduce my rating to one star and to add that after online chats and phone calls by both myself (the Seller) and the Buyer (who is in Real Estate), this company's customer service is really lacking. The Buyer did originally make a mistake by not sending the fee (their instructions are a bit confusing). But then she sent the fee via PayPal several days ago and Escrow.com hasn't claimed the funds and you can't speak to finance by phone. Now tell me these delays are not created to increase their interest income from the funds. They had the opportunity to make two new happy customers and instead they just ticked us both off.

FIRST REVIEW: I have used this company once and so far I am not too happy.
Let's think about this... How does a company like Escrow.com make their money?
1. Fees
2. Holding on to the money as long as possible while they earn interest on it.

They seem to find all sorts of excuses to hold your money so they can earn the most interest on it. They are slow to respond to their customers while they earn interest on your money. I don't know where they are based, but the grammatical errors all over their site and in their communications makes me think they are not based in the USA, which is a little scary. I won't be using them again.

I recently sold my domain name through escrow.com I thought they are a reputable company, a honest company. I sold my domain to a buyer, everything went smoothly at first, and then 12hrs later, I get this email from escrow.com saying they are recalling the funds they disbursed because the seller isn't satisfied. The seller had a inspection period and he was happy that is why he closed the transaction. Escrow now recalled the money and I lost my domain in the processes. Do not do business with this fraud of a company.

Rude and reactionary customer service reps. The supervisor was just as bad and had no customer service skills either. All they are taught to do is cover up for each other and make excuse after excuse, caring none whatsoever about giving service to the customer. I could not understand it because I used them in the past and they were good then. Voila! I discovered that they were purchased last year by another entity. NOW I KNOW TO AVOID THEM. The reputation that the original escrow.com built, these new owners have wrecked.
Never again!

I used escrow.com for a purchase of a boat sight-unseen. It was an extremely effective tool for managing the sale process. The fees were in-line with other methods of direct payment and they added a level of security and integration with PayPal. In addition, when I needed to make sure my payment was posted quickly, their customer service rep, Louie, went out of his way to make sure it was done. Overall a very positive experience.

I just completed the rare sale of a two character dot com domain through escrow.com. I have had people try to scam me on offers for this domain in the past, so I was very wary. An escrow.com executive wrote a special contract to handle the transaction in the way I felt most secure with. He personally handled taking possession of the domain, and the wire transfer of my funds was processed within ten minutes. By the time I could log onto my online banking account, the balance had the wire transfer already showing.

I had never done business with escrow.com before, this was a high dollar transaction, and there is no question that I was concerned about a process that would be absolutely safe for me. They cooperated in every way to give me that confidence, and helped me complete a rare dream sale.

I give them my highest recommendation.

Before deciding to sell an item, I wanted it checked out for any damage. I paid a company to do the inspection and it came back fine. The receipt for the inspection was part of my selling strategy since I figured a buyer would appreciate that the item had been inspected.

After selling, the buyer insisted on going through Escrow.com

After shipping, the buyer held on to the merchandise FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE within Escrow's time frame. They filed for a refund like 14 days after receipt. Now, let me ask you a question, if the merchandise (which had just been inspected) had an issue, doesn't it make sense that the buyer would have returned it before the last possible day? Humm, there's a clue.

When I got the merchandise back, it had in-fact been damaged. I called Escrow the same day to let them know.

After about 14 days or so, Escrow notified me that they had sided with the buyer and had refunded their money. I called Escrow and was told there was nothing they could do.

I thought about filing with the shipper for possible reimbursement in case the item had been damaged during shipping- BUT by the time I got a response from Escrow on the matter, it was too late to file any claim!

I have to laugh at the "comments" made by Escrow on some of these complaints.
Please NOTE: There was never any mention of arbitration in this case. In fact, Neither Side even engaged in arbitration in my transaction - nor was it ever brought up by Escrow staff via phone. I was basically told by their representative that they were siding with the buyer because they were unable to determine fault! < That's a vote of confidence.

So it comes down to this, based on the comments left by Escrow below and what happened to me.

A. They are liars.

Or

B. Their staff is incompetent.

Pick one. Just don't do business with Escrow. I'll never do it again. It was a very expensive $2000 lesson. Learn from my mistake.

"If both sides reject, the transaction enters a 14 day negotiation period, in which both sides can try to negotiate a resolution. If waived or ended without a resolution either party may select an outside arbitrator to investigate the transaction and we will follow that arbitrators ruling to release the funds held in escrow. If one party starts arbitration and the other party refuses, we must release the funds to the party who has started arbitration."

- ARBITRATION NEVER HAPPENED - Gave buyer money back and told me so long. Even though I still had receipt from item inspection before it was sent to the buyer. Buyer had nothing.

Was told by them that i would get payment sent and with no charge. My total sale was $1000. 00. I got a check for $950.00. So i was charged 50.00 for a overnight check that was to be paid by them.
The sale was between seller and buyer, buyer to pay all fees related to the sale. ALL period.
SELLER BEWARE OF ESCROW FEES.

This service sets everything up so that the buyer is the only one who can get screwed. If the seller changes their mind, escrow.com charges the buyer for it out of the escrow. There is no accountability against the seller by escrow.com, none. Once the buyer is forced to pay the amount, the only recourse is a lawsuit, which is ridiculous.

My exact situation: I bought a large priced item. I am not to release the escrow funds until I take possession. The seller wants me to release them before the product is even in my possession. I have explained the rules of the escrow that HE SETUP exactly word for word, but this dimwit doesn't want to go that route. He wants to rewrite the rules now, yet I am on the line for hundreds per his problems, not him.

I absolutely hate this company's way of screwing the buyer over.

Seems like they don't have someone with an actual background in escrow running the show. Problems included:
Bad wording on website led to multiple days of delay around shipping vehicle. When they said "do you need shipping" what they mean is "is this item being shipped?"
They do not automatically release funds at end of transaction. You have to call. No explanation why.
They failed to release the funds after the first call.
They take 3 business days to execute an ach. 1-2 days is typical.
They will close out the transaction BEFORE the funds are sent. This creates the very unnerving status of the funds having apparently disappeared

In the end they covered a wire transfer for my funds. Instill can't help but wonder about their claim that they hold the funds non interest bearing. I bet not.

Sadly, few alternatives.

Terrible for sellers. I wouldn't sell another product through them. It's great if you're a buyer because Escrow allows them bloody murder as long as they (escrow) get paid.

Escrow's staff even lied to me, confirming that the seller was to blame and the transaction would be handled fairly. However, after the deliberation period ended, Escrow did a U-Turn and basically told me Too Bad seller, it's your word against theirs. This is the company you are dealing with. No wonder their rating right now is at 17%. Every bad review can't be wrong. Worst online company I have had the displeasure of doing business with.

For a company that deals with so much money and incredibly important transactions, Escrow are simply shocking. I work as a freelancer for a living and used Escrow when a client couldn't get access to the regular services. They were okay at first (if incredibly expensive) but then they messed up.

I couldn't get access to the transaction to mark it as complete. This went on for several weeks with no effort to fix it, they even lied to me and said they had marked it for me! A comment which they later rescinded. When I got in touch with the customer "support" they said they would look into it. A week later and nothing happened, except that I was severely short on my rent because a job I had completed 6 weeks ago, was still sitting stagnant.

I used them as a last resort, but I wouldn't even recommend them for that. Working with Escrow is tantamount to robbery and a kick in the teeth.