Independent open-source escrow service... Good Idea?

Hey everyone,

So I was thinking with all the recent events with DNMs lately and a lot of people branching away from them and beginning to deal with vendors directly that it could be a good idea to create an open-source independent escrow service.

Person in charge of validating transaction would be randomized to prevent scams, along with being able to request a new verifier once or twice. The moderator could get like .5% of transaction. IDK just throwing ideas out there. Could I guess be used by anyone in the bitcoin community.

Anyway do you guys think it's a good idea? I'm willing to begin working on it if I can get some support and help from other programmers.


Comments


[2 Points] gramsadmin:

I think this is a great Idea and is actually something that needs done asap. Get a hold of me.


[1 Points] KevlarNChrome:

I think it's a great idea. I actually thought of it myself about 6 months ago, but I can't code worth a shit and have no idea how to evaluate coding, or where to start looking for people who could do the job.


[1 Points] youtakesally:

Get in the line.


[1 Points] DancingWindAway:

It does exist on a number of sites. No English speaking sites but they exist, most often in structures similar to TMG.


[1 Points] None:

I posted a thread a few days ago with a new market idea, and everyone seemed to think it was a dumb idea. I'm seeing more and more of the ideas I posted in that thread popping up in other threads


[1 Points] ShulginsCat:

This is an excellent idea. Hope you and grams can make this a reality!

Since community members will basically take the role of the market now, there are probably some procedures we need to think about:

  1. Anonymity while resolving a dispute: Evidence submitted to the moderator such as postal tracking, packaging etc. must be blurred or redacted somehow to protect the identity of the buyer and vendor from a possible LE arbiter.

  2. Canceling an order: If the buyer decides to cancel an order before the vendor has "marked it shipped" there should be some time guidelines in place. For instance, the arbiter should announce to the vendor that the buyer requests the order to be canceled. Then, allow the vendor an additional 3 days before refunding the buyer - in case the vendor already shipped the product but did not announce it yet.

  3. Auto-finalization: Similar to the case above, it's possible that the buyer or vendor become incommunicable for whatever reason. Similarly to what TMP (and other markets) implemented there should be some time period - say, 60 days - after which the moderator can sign off the funds to the vendor without requiring the buyer's consent.

In any case good luck, and keep us updated on what comes from this! Really excited about this project.


[1 Points] gsaT529724:

It's hard to have an independent escrow service because that service needs to know what's being shipped in order to decide who they side with on a dispute. They need names, tracking numbers, etc. When they have all of that you may as well just use a market.