Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: MohiKanMatriX on July 27, 2012, 09:23 pm

Title: Escrow - noob
Post by: MohiKanMatriX on July 27, 2012, 09:23 pm
I have been reading up on user guides and safe buys, but I am still not fully understanding escrow. I haven't made my first purchase yet, but I plan on making a few today. I did a search too, but this forum is set up kinda weird so I didn't go through all the results to make sure that this hasn't been covered - Sorry. No, but I understand the concept of escrow. Makes perfect sense, but how do I know if a seller uses it. The buyer guides I've read just say "make sure you use escrow" and step by step it's check the seller out, checkout and use PGP, then wait. It doesn't explain how to use it at all.
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: Boris Badenov on July 27, 2012, 09:37 pm
Yeah, I can see how it's hard to know this. I believe all items are purchased through escrow, and teh admonition is to use escrow, that is, to not finalize early.

BB
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: MohiKanMatriX on July 27, 2012, 09:45 pm
So it's safe to assume if a seller has a perfect score they use escrow - Just go ahead and order!?
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: MohiKanMatriX on July 27, 2012, 10:10 pm
K, so I was gonna give it a try with a trusted seller. I figured one I checked out it would ask for payment with an address, but it says I have insufficient funds. How do I send SR my btc's?
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: goangod on July 27, 2012, 10:33 pm
peeps you need to get your heads around silk road before you make a purchase
have you got your  pgp sorted  so you can send encrypted correspondence to a vendor ?
have you anonymously obtained your bitcoins to make your purchase ?
have you tumbled your coins before you send them to sr
do you fully understand escrow ??
escrow is there for your safety,when you place an order your coins are automatically taken from your account and held in escrow by SR,when you receive your order you then log in to SR go to your account and you finalize the deal,the coins are then released from escrow and sent to the vendor by SR
check the sellers page and read everything on there,and last but not least if a vendor asks you to finalize early (releasing funds before you get goods) dont deal with that vendor
you have been warned
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: sUbCulTuRed on July 28, 2012, 07:10 pm
This is a tactlessly late response. Yeah, sorry for the delay. I know nobody wanted this to pop up again. lol I was the MohiKanMatriX, but I can't recover my password for whatever reason... I know right!? Just making it worse for me. But I don't care what y'all think. I had to say what goangod had to say wasn't helpful at all. The answer was yes to everything you asked by the way, except for tumbling BTC before sent to SR, cuz I never got that far. And I said that. Just like I said I understand the concept of escrow. But maybe you don't read to good. I wanted to know how to be sure a seller is using escrow like I've been advised to do. You didn't even touch on that. All you did was go out of your way to slander me out of paranoid speculation for no other reason then you were annoyed by something I was ignorant to. This is my first purchase. I'm learning, but you don't have to get offended about it. It's not about you. Forums are designed so people can help solve each others problems and share their experiences. It's all good. I think I got most of it down on my own now. Quick unnecessary thanks to Badenov to bein' understanding, thanks man. Oh, and even though you upset me goan, I gotta tell you nice pic! You look like a sexy godess.
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: goangod on July 28, 2012, 07:18 pm
oh,my apologies if i came across as rude,i did not intend at all to sound rude ,but after reading the previous 5 posts it sounded to me like all members where unsure how it works on SR,so i thought i would give you some quick points you need to know about
sorry if you were offended,i will keep my nose out in future :)
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: sqlinjection on July 29, 2012, 04:52 am
This is a tactlessly late response. Yeah, sorry for the delay. I know nobody wanted this to pop up again. lol I was the MohiKanMatriX, but I can't recover my password for whatever reason... I know right!? Just making it worse for me. But I don't care what y'all think. I had to say what goangod had to say wasn't helpful at all. The answer was yes to everything you asked by the way, except for tumbling BTC before sent to SR, cuz I never got that far. And I said that. Just like I said I understand the concept of escrow. But maybe you don't read to good. I wanted to know how to be sure a seller is using escrow like I've been advised to do. You didn't even touch on that. All you did was go out of your way to slander me out of paranoid speculation for no other reason then you were annoyed by something I was ignorant to. This is my first purchase. I'm learning, but you don't have to get offended about it. It's not about you. Forums are designed so people can help solve each others problems and share their experiences. It's all good. I think I got most of it down on my own now. Quick unnecessary thanks to Badenov to bein' understanding, thanks man. Oh, and even though you upset me goan, I gotta tell you nice pic! You look like a sexy godess.

Let me see if I can help you.

1. ALL sellers use escrow. By that I mean it's not an optional "feature" in the interface that a seller can disable.. once your order is submitted, it's placed in escrow. Always. A seller cannot override that. However, at that point you also have the option of pressing 'finalize' which is either done once you receive your purchase and want to leave feedback OR because you are a new buyer dealing with a vendor who wishes you to finalize early. A seller cannot force you to finalize, but if their seller's page states that "buyers with under 5 successful purchase or > 10% refund rate must FE" or "int'l buyers using regular post must FE" then they can cancel your order if you don't agree to play by their rules.

As you know, the advice is to never FE. Even if you're a brand-new buyer you should have no problem finding a vendor who is fine with you staying in escrow. However, in the end it's up to you. Occasionally vendors will only allow you to stay in escrow if you choose a trackable shipping method, that's when the hard decisions start.

2. Adding BitCoins to SR is ridiculously easy, I'm not sure where you went wrong with that. Login to your account, click the "account" at the top (just to the right of messages/orders) and you'll see it says "To deposit BitCoins, send them to this address" - so do just that. Send BTC to that address and they'll show up in 1-6 (sometimes longer) hours. Click "get new address" for every deposit to stay safe.

I hope you know how to use encryption to submit your address to the seller as well.

Look, none of this stuff is particularly complicated. It just requires more than 2 minutes of searching the FAQs. Read the tutorials on the forums, poke around the site and you should be able to figure it out. People here are helpful and willing to help you out but only if you can show them that you've already tried to help yourself.

Good luck.
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: sUbCulTuRed on July 30, 2012, 02:58 am
Thanks. That's all anyone needed to say. It's simple, but if you actually read the "making a successful purchase" it's something they leave out and still emphasize be sure to use escrow. So it's like a little nerve racking if you haven't actually experienced the process yet. And as for the address thing yeah, I don't know how I saw right past account so many times. I was just so antsy and SR is setup pretty vague so I just kept seeing past it for whatever reason. I was trying too hard. I should have just taken a break and relaxed a little. Ever since I heard about this I've been putting it all together for like a week and the frustration and anticipation has been killing me. Thanks for your help. I hope I get more acquainted with the cool people around here. I want to get my profile name back on here. I don't know how I did that either. It just won't e-mail me my password. Maybe I made a typo when I signed up.
Title: Re: Escrow - noob
Post by: misterQT on July 30, 2012, 05:40 am
Is there a certain amount of buys a buyer must have before escrow works? thanks~