hi

i have recently been makeing a deal between me and a company based in cyprus. im trying to close a deal on wholesale ipods with them, and have an agreed price for 20, 50 and 100units. for any of those quantities there is a large investment needed by me!

Now, i have never used any escrow services before, and on asking the supplier for a UK reference to talk to i was told

we cannot send you any personal details of our customer. You understand this. Those information are confidential. We can start business by using moneybookers escrow. you order from us, send money through this service to moneybookers (not me) and when you receive the product then you release the amount.

now, the english is a little broken, and ifirstall a bit informal, but i dont think a scammer would offer escrow service to his buyer, as that means the buyer must confirm recipt of products first.

What does anyone think, should i trade with this supplier?

Hi,
I used MB escro once. They use high security so don't worry. Just one thing, open new your internet browser window and type www.moneybookers.com, don't use any shortcuts in e-mail, especially if the link was given by seller.

ok thanks!

What is the name you are sell from??

and do you have used Money Bookers?

ive never used money bookers before! what do you mean name i sell from?

Don't forget that from 1 November 2009, the Payment Services Directive 2009 law came into force in the UK, which brings regulation/registration for escrow activity under the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
There are now low cost (eg flat-fee £3) FSA registered automated escrow services available in the UK.

From 1 November 2009, all UK escrow services need to be registered with the FSA (except those operating pre-2007, which have an extra 12-18 months to register).
Fortunately the FSA provide an online register of such services at http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/psdFirmSearchForm.do (try searching there for 'escrow').
If a firm is not registered on the FSA website, they may well be fraudulent and should not be used. If a firm is registered, then it has been checked out as' Fit & Proper' (by the FSA, and/or HMRC ) and is genuine and should be safe, and also protected by UK law.
There are many, many professional looking UK based escrow sites which are fraudulent (even having UK addresses, phone numbers and fake FSA numbers). They look genuine in every way, but are just waiting to steal your money. Always, always check the FSA online register, and if not there be suspicious.

Moneybookers seems to be an established firm and I believe operates as an electronic money issuer (and is registered as such elsewhere by the FSA).


Make sure if you use Moneybookers that you are happy with their dispute procedure, as there is no point in using a genuine escrow service if the dispute mechanism doesn't operate justly and you end up losing out anyway.

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The last post was over 3 years :P

Moneybookers is a great website, offers so much more protection for the seller and they perform a lot of checks to make sure fraud is kept to a minimum, I just wish more people would use it ><