Escrow Fees - Are they really that high? (1 Viewing)

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I am in the process of acquiring another domain and it is for a significant amount of money.
The seller has asked me to pay the Escrow fees.


Now traditionally I don't use escrow but this is an international sale so I thought I would at least go in and check the numbers.



If I look at tier #1 $0-$5,000 the total fee is 9.75%
OMG is anyone paying that and 20% commission to a market place?



On my transaction the escrow fee is 2.67% (level 3) which comes to over 7k
Tell you what, there is no way I'm paying over 7k in escrow charges.


The main question I have for the members is the concierge fee, is that a requirement?
It seems an insanely excessive amount just to hold a domain.
 
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They won’t use Dan escrow Frank?
If not I would simply tell them I will pay the Dan.com escrow equivalent fees
 
They won’t use Dan escrow Frank?
If not I would simply tell them I will pay the Dan.com escrow equivalent fees

Escrow is 2.67% and Dan.com would be 5% if they do a push to me.

That said, on a high end transaction this still represents over 7k in escrow charges for me.
I am already paying a significant CAD to USD conversion so once I add another large escrow amount it makes the deal a little wobbly for me.
 
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I guess my biggest question is...

Does everyone use concierge?
If Escrow has my money, can the seller not release the domain to me and then Escrow releases the funds to the seller.

The extra 1.78% seems a bit absurd to me just to stick a domain into a holding account.

On my transaction just that concierge portion would be $4,895 CAD to hold the domain.
That should be totally avoidable and there should be a way to do this just at the base charge which for me would be $2,450 CAD
 
Concierge is not required unless you want escrow to be more involved and do the transfer for you, but I’m not even sure if escrow.com can hold .ca domains. Sedo can’t hold .ca either.

The last time I did escrow we didn’t use the concierge and after the money was received I was asked by escrow to contact the buyer myself to coordinate how to transfer the domain. I don’t even remember the concierge option coming up, but that might be because I was the seller and not the buyer, and/or because it was a .ca.
 
If I understand this correctly, you are the Buyer on this deal?

It's not unusual for a Buyer to cover 100% of the escrow fee, if buying directly from domain owner, but you could propose splitting it 50/50 with Seller.

You don't need to use Escrow.com concierge mode, that is totally optional on your end. The escrow fee is half the price for standard escrow, about 1% for standard, 2% for Concierge mode.

Is Seller insisting on using Concierge mode? If so, they should explain why, and/or pay the difference between standard escrow and the Concierge version.

FYI, Concierge mode does not work with all TLDs and ccTLDs, only some of them, so be sure to check with Escrow.com first before starting a Concierge escrow transaction; their platform will allow you to initiate a Concierge transaction on ANY TLD, but later you may find out they can't support Concierge on that specific TLD. Works fine for .com, .net, .org., but does not work for .CA last time I checked.

As others have suggested here, you could also do this via DAN.com. Sedo is another option, for escrow, but their fees are higher than Escrow.com.

Good luck!
 
One other thing to keep in mind: Escrow.com charges HST to Canadian customers, so a $1,000 escrow fee will be $1,130 if you are based in Ontario, 13% HST.
 
If I understand this correctly, you are the Buyer on this deal?

It's not unusual for a Buyer to cover 100% of the escrow fee, if buying directly from domain owner, but you could propose splitting it 50/50 with Seller.

You don't need to use Escrow.com concierge mode, that is totally optional on your end. The escrow fee is half the price for standard escrow, about 1% for standard, 2% for Concierge mode.

Is Seller insisting on using Concierge mode? If so, they should explain why, and/or pay the difference between standard escrow and the Concierge version.

FYI, Concierge mode does not work with all TLDs and ccTLDs, only some of them, so be sure to check with Escrow.com first before starting a Concierge escrow transaction; their platform will allow you to initiate a Concierge transaction on ANY TLD, but later you may find out they can't support Concierge on that specific TLD. Works fine for .com, .net, .org., but does not work for .CA last time I checked.

As others have suggested here, you could also do this via DAN.com. Sedo is another option, for escrow, but their fees are higher than Escrow.com.

Good luck!


The purchase is for a .com and the seller only specified I have to pay escrow.

I am willing to do that if it's only the standard escrow fee without concierge.

So that is the question, does the seller release the domain once Escrow has verified the funds?
Does escrow release the funds before I get the domain?

I guess concierge takes care of all that but I would imagine without it the seller has to release the domain once Escrow verifies they have the funds. Then I verify I have received the domain and then escrow releases the funds. Is that correct?

All that should be achievable without concierge right?
 
Escrow does not release the funds until the domain is in your hands. There is nothing to worry about.
 
Escrow does not release the funds until the domain is in your hands. There is nothing to worry about.

Yeah, I only used Escrow once but it was so far back I forgot the process.

This is a huge transaction and I am willing to pay the base fee if it assures no hanky panky but definitely no concierge, that puts me over budget once I factor in USD to CAD conversion on the entire deal.
 
I have never used concierge and have had many transactions as buyer and seller and haven’t had an issue. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You end up confirming with escrow whether you have the domain or not before they release the funds.
 
I’ve never used that concierge service at Escrow.com,

I’ve used the regular Escrow fee only. I would like to know why that concierge is necessary, and what extra protection does it offer? Maybe mention to the seller they can pay the fee or split the fee If they need the concierge services.

Escrow.com secures funds before they notify seller to push the domain.

concierge fees seems unnecessary to me. (Interested to know why concierge is necessary, unless someone has no idea how to transfer/push a domain)

good luck 🤞
 
As a buyer broker, about 80% of our transactions are using standard escrow mode. The 20% using Concierge are for a variety of strategic reasons:

  • We really, really want to hide the identity of the Buyer on the transaction and keep Buyer and Seller from having any contact during the process. But even with Concierge this is not 100% bulletproof and human error can blow the cover of the Buyer.
  • The Seller is paranoid and only wants to deliver the domain to Escrow.com as the intermediary. If this is a deal breaker, we go with Concierge mode, but try to make the Seller pay the extra cost for this.
  • We don't want to be the ones handholding the Seller through the delivery process of domain, and it's simpler to pay Escrow.com to do the handholding. This comes in handy when the Seller does not speak English, although for certain countries and languages, we will do the deal via Sedo since they can handle lots of different languages and countries.
  • For Sellers, the benefit of Concierge mode is you get paid faster; Escrow.com releases funds to Seller as soon as domain hits Escrow.com registrar account, which can be a bit disconcerting as the Buyer. Seller gets paid before Buyer gets the domain!
  • One thing I don't like about Concierge mode is that your visibility into the state of the transaction is somewhat hampered compared to standard transaction.

I like the fact Escrow.com has a Concierge mode, it does come in handy, but if Buyer and Seller are tech-savvy and aren't trying to be in stealth mode, there is no need for Concierge mode.
 
I too use Escrow.com all the time, but never use the concierge. And yes, its customary for the buyer to pay the fees since it mostly protects the buyer. And of course Escrow has to reclaim their CC fees, so its not good to pay with a CC either. Usually its cheapest to send money by bank wire for any significant purchase. Escrow.com is reliable, even better with their new ability to handle CAD. I started a CAD transaction on the 6th, the buyer paid and I transferred the domain, all the same day. The funds were then dispersed at the end of the day on the 7th (after the one day inspection period). The funds then hit my CAD account this morning at Scotia. I'm happy with that. One caveat is getting verified. In this case, the buyer got verified BEFORE we started the transaction. If the buyer tries to get verified after, god only knows how long it can take since it relies on the buyer providing the correct into to Escrow.com. I've seen plenty of buyers struggle with that part and they eventually just decide to trust me and pay me directly, bypassing Escrow.
 

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