GM Jackson Elsegood says support and usability enhancements are key initiatives for leading escrow service.
Escrow.com is under new ownership. With a change at the top, there’s been a bit of concern over making sure the core escrow product remains intact.
Yesterday I spoke with Jackson Elsegood, the new General Manager for Escrow.com. His message is pretty clear: the core product and pricing will stay, and service and usability enhancements are on the way.
What’s staying the same
Elsegood stressed that the company doesn’t want to fix what’s not broken. To that end, the core functionality of Escrow.com will remain intact. Also, Escrow.com doesn’t plan to increase prices. It would rather grow the business by increasing the volume of transactions.
The key feature of Escrow.com is trust, Elsegood said. It will continue to be licensed, bonded and insured. It hopes to continue to expand its licenses.
What’s changing
Improvements fall into a couple categories: support and usability.
From the support perspective, Escrow.com is going international. This has two benefits.
First, Escrow.com now has more language capabilities. It added Chinese speaking support, which is obviously important now given the volume of transactions taking place with Chinese buyers. Elsegood stressed that he wants to be ahead of the curve on language coverage.
Second, the company is able to expand support hours by having teams around the globe. It has already moved from a 7 am to 4 pm PST operation to 7 am to 11 pm PST.
I think language support and extended service hours will be a welcome improvement at Escrow.com.
On the usability front, a key improvement will be better mobile usability.
Both Elsegood and Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie will be at NamesCon next month.
AbdulBasit Makrani says
That’s good news for Escrow.com frequent users.
Thanks for sharing Andrew.
Adam says
I got to tell you the new ownership fired the best and most trusted people at Escrow.com after taking over.
It’s all the talk among domainers. Now we don’t have those contacts that we have been working with for a decade. Honestly, many of us question whether we should trust you now.
I’m pretty upset that they fired them. Those that got fired should have got a raise. It really pisses me off.
Also, you just fired the bank of knowledge they had. Now you don’t have it.
So far you are a new face and I don’t trust Escrow.com like I used to. You guys, from what I hear, have a reputation of not doing a good job when you buy out others.
Way to go.
JZ says
who else did they fire besides brendan?
SilentSadNight says
I had serious Christmas shopping to do this weekend.
For my Dad who just got out of the hospital from successfully beating pneumonia even though he is a 78 year old Vet with COPD.
But no, now I can’t, because I was counting on Escrow to release funds they PROMISED would be released by today.
There was no review in place, these were funds awarded to me after an arbitration I WON and that Escrow took days to finally release.
So to make sure things went smoothly, I sent off a couple emails today.
I now am assuming the people I emailed have been let go.
Anyone know if Sandra is still there ? She is a gem of a person.
I have used them for a long while and this new non responsive, non reliable behavior is alarming.
mike says
Escrow’s New Ad “Government Audited ” is one of the dumbest Ideas I have seen . Who wants the government in any of your business ?
Steff says
My biggest concern with Escrow.com has always been them NOT taking possession of the domain during the escrow process.
Having the seller just hand over the domain the the buyer and then having to convince Escrow.com that the buyer actually possesses the domain is an absurd way to transfer the domains.
This is why I prefer to use Sedo.com, they take possession of the domain.
That is the way it should be done.
Andrew Allemann says
Have you ever heard of an unresolved problem caused by not holding the domain?
Steff says
No, I do not know of anyone personally that has lost their domain because some buyer Claimed they didn’t receive it (even though they did)
But that does not mean that it hasn’t happened.
I like everyone else don’t know every detail of every escrow transaction Escrow.com has done.
Unless Escrow.com comes out and states that they have never had a seller lose a domain this way then we will never know for sure.
And if by some miracle they haven’t, then they are very lucky.
Andrew Allemann says
I imagine that if someone did have this happen, then certainly they would have screamed about it on the forums and notified bloggers. I don’t think it has happened.
John Berryhill says
Escrow.com does provide a domain holding service to do exactly that.
https://www.escrow.com/services/domain-name-holding-escrow.aspx
Andrew Allemann says
That service is designed for payment plans with a minimum of 3 months.
Jackson Elsegood says
Hi Steff,
This is something we are looking to add to the service in the near future – watch this space.
Thanks,
Jackson
CSW says
Seriously? That’s not just a red flag, that’s endgame. Don’t. We’ve been using Escrow.com since you formed, with zero problems. We’d drop you cold.
Already DNHolding via GoDaddy’s clumsy, exploitative paws introduces Buyer error, huge delay, and keeps us on the phone for weeks helping nav GD’s hosting upsells/mousetraps. So we don’t allow DNHolding anymore. Your support said you were thinking about offering Enom for DNHolding, and if you do, then we can use and promote that service.
Introduce GoDaddy handoffs or ANY further interference into standard sales txns and we’re out. The only people that mention you at the outset are Chinese buyers, and those are DOA four-figure offers.
Corporate/funded buyers can take up the name before wire with no risk to Sellers, and the majority of the time, that’s how transactions go. Sellers use you because, as it stands, it is no bother to us to offer your service, should the Buyer feel like paying for it.
This is how companies fail every day: New, panicky, self-absorbed hires trying to justify their existence.
CSW says
Adding multilingual support would be a big win. Your DNHolding team is comfy with contracts now–what if you offered contract templates that were ‘already translated?’
There is a cash bottleneck here. Sellers waste days wrestling with brokers/standard brokerage contracts for two reasons: broker Ks try to get us to indemnify Buyer against all other TM users (hilarious arcana), and brokers are loathe to allow Buyer’s atty (for undisclosed principals) or Buyer to sign/declare that any Buyer mark use post-dates the registration, because they fear getting cut out of the deal or are too stupid to make the case to paranoid Buyers.
Sellers don’t offer these Seller-protective contracts in Chinese, etc. If we could reply, ‘Just contact Escrow, please, hsieh, hsieh,’ that would be a sterling service to introduce.
While you’re at it, set up a marketplace that implements those Seller-protective clauses, and you could own Sedo overnight. There are huge, high-quality portfolios that can’t be listed for sale because every single textstring is in use in some dark corner of the earth by someone. If the UDRP blesses that biz model, as they should under law, trapped value would be freed up, to everyone’s benefit.
@PotentialNames says
Escrow.com needs to streamline their payment processing system.
Not accepting credit card and PayPal payment for website transactions is the dumbest thing Escrow.com has ever done.
Mike says
YES, again I second and third that. MAKE Payment System for Buyers QUICKER and EASIER it will make life better and easier.
John Berryhill says
The problem with accepting Paypal or credit card payments is that they are subject to chargebacks or repudiation long after the transaction has posted. Card holders can dispute payments long after the fact, and long after the domain name has transferred.
European domainer says
I have to be sincere, I don’t think you did a good job with Freemarket. I think you didn’t show much respect for domain investors, anyway if you will work to become really global, so you will translate your agreements and webpages, you will give support in other languages etc. than you are on the right way. You will show respect for the markets where domain buyers and investors are not English mother tongue people and this is the right way to go.
So thank you for your efforts.
P.S: Take advantage NOW of the laziness/incompetence of European marketplace/Escrow services…
Mike says
I second that. Please ,Please Jackson, introduce £ pounds Sterling to the currencies that transactions can be done in, that will be excellent. Get rid of the “Euro” it is junk !! Thanks
Jackson Elsegood says
Hi Mike,
We are adding GBP along with a number of other major currencies. I look forward to getting your business onto our platform as soon as possible.
Cheers,
Jackson
Charley says
Would bitcoins be a payment mode?
Jackson Elsegood says
Hi Charley,
At this stage we don’t plan to do escrows in bitcoin, although I am a big fan of the blockchain technology it hasn’t been something that a lot of customers have asked for yet.
Cheers,
Jackson
Charley says
Hi Jackson
I will spend bitcoins if it is a payment mode.
Joseph Peterson says
My, my, my … Domainers are leaping to a lot of negative conclusions without even giving the new team a chance to make a mistake! Anybody ever heard the phrase “benefit of the doubt”? That attitude has its benefits.
It is hardly unprecedented for there to be a change of management after 1 company is acquired by another. From everything that’s been said, it sounds like Escrow.com’s services will remain intact; so let’s assume – until demonstrated otherwise – that the business will continue humming. The few changes that have been discussed are all positive improvements.
Let me add my voice to the chorus of people asking for a domain holding option. Some people don’t want to set up their transactions that way, which is why I say “option”. But others do.
For instance, I have a brokerage transaction at Escrow.com right now that has been delayed probably until after Christmas because the seller is apprehensive about transferring the domain directly to the buyer. That seller is a new Escrow.com customer and an officer at a large company. It doesn’t matter that I’ve used Escrow.com repeatedly and trust transactions to run smoothly in the present system. What matters is that some sellers do get cold feet, which causes delays and complications. Having a domain holding option would alleviate such customer concerns.