One of the most important things that any escrow business needs to do is keep up and running for its customers. The whole essence of being an escrow company is that you are the trusted partner between two or more organisations that don’t really know each other. Providing an escrow service is all about doing trusted transactions.

It just so happens Thursday last week the Chinese escrow company DN.COM was taken off the air by the Chinese government. Clients who were midway through escrow transactions had no way of finding out what was going on and large sums of money were left in limbo.

Eventually, DN.com sent out an email that indicated the problem was caused by a change in the entity of the business.

I must admit that there is a frightening chain of events that really strike at the heart of being an escrow business. For a start, escrow is all about being really careful with other people’s money….and as I said in the opening paragraph, it’s about trust. It’s all about being very detailed, focused and losing sleep over a rounding error in a transaction.

To have the business effectively shutdown by the government shows that it's everything but focused on the details. It makes you wonder what else is being forgotten along the way in any escrow transactions….which brings up another point.

How do you become an escrow agent in some of these jurisdictions? In most western economies, escrow is a serious business that is highly regulated by the government to ensure that all parties are protected, even in the situation where there is a failure of the business.

My understanding (and I could be corrected) is that these types of controls are not in effect in the Chinese market. What this means is that funds transferred to a Chinese escrow agent may be used for working capital, rather than being held in trust. If for any reason the business struggles, then the funds used to pay for goods may also be used to prop it up. The business may choose not to do this but there is no governing body that they are accountable to as an escrow agent. This effectively means the business is actually NOT providing any escrow but IS just a middleman swapping money between parties.

There’s a really good reason why Escrow.com spends an absolute fortune on compliance. As well as being legal, this process provides buyers and sellers with the confidence and trust that their chosen escrow service is looking after their transactions.

Now here’s where the whole DN.com business gets really nasty. It just so happens that a scam website dnd.com created a mirror of the DN.com website (prior to it going down). Google indexed the pages and when it came up in the search listings customers could mistakenly click on dnd.com and think that it was DN.com. They would then enter their username and password into the scam system…..I think you get the rest.

So whatever you do right now, if you are a customer of DN.com…..update your password! Also, if you use the same password elsewhere, first of all hit your head on your desk a number of times and repeat, “I’m an idiot” each time. Then go and update all of your passwords at any financial institutions so they are different.

To be very clear....I don't have anything against DN.com and I find that it's terrible that a disreputable organisation decided to take advantage of their predicament. At the same time, DN.com's problems were ultimately of their own making.....hopefully they've learned a few lessons so this doesn't happen in the future.

As a side note, I’m very selective about who I let sponsor my blog. The reason why I’m proud to have Escrow.com as one of my sponsors is because they’ve developed a high level of trust over many years by making sure they are compliant to all governmental authorities. I know who I use for my escrow….

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

When I attended “The Domains Conference” in Fort Lauderdale last year I gave each of the attendees a free copy of my debut SciFi book Battleframe (see blurb below). The domain industry has given me so much that I would like to extend the free giveaway to everyone in the domain industry.

From March 13-16th the Ebook version of Battleframe will be FREE on Amazon.

Click here to download your copy:

I would love it if you could share the link with family and friends, so feel free to pass it around to anyone that you know. It would also be awesome if you could provide a review on Amazon as well. :-)

Don’t forget to register at my author's blog http://michaelgilmour.com to view maps of featured installations and the planet Alpha Three. There’s also a forum that you can participate in to ask me questions about the characters, plot and setting. I love hearing from readers so feel free to fire away!

I hope you reading enjoy Battleframe as much as I did writing it!

Have a great weekend!

Michael Gilmour

BattleFrame – Book One of the Mindwars

Resource rich planet Alpha Three becomes the focus of a galactic wide conflict. In the midst of a remorseless Scourge invasion a lone human battleframe pilot, call-sign Whizzbang, strives to find and rescue his closest friend from the invaders.

With the extermination of the human colony seemingly inevitable, Whizzbang's squad of veteran pilots struggle to turn the tide of the war. Just when he thinks they may have a chance, members of the squad begin vanishing before his eyes and the odds of winning the battle become slim to none.

The mysterious nano-robots, unknowingly developed by an alien intelligence, appear to be all that will enable humanity to survive the onslaught. But all is not what it seems as the micro-machines begin to dramatically transform Whizzbang's friends in astounding ways.

Safe within his command dome, the enemy General plots on how he can cover the world in the enigmatic Barrier, a force that kills humans in seconds. It is then that Whizzbang discovers that the Earth may be the next Scourge target.

Book one in the “Mindwars” opens with our galaxy in turmoil and humanity on the brink of extinction.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

In today’s video I discuss what makes a domain valuable and why very little underpins the current Chinese domain market. A lot of domainer’s have banked on a continually rising market and sadly, many of them may be in for a surprise when the Chinese market experiences a correction.

This is a really important and interesting point to discuss. There are a couple things that dictate what your domain name is worth and what kind of price you can be selling them for.

Watch the video and take part in the conversation by leaving a comment bellow!

Today I have the privilege to be writing my very first article for Whizzbangs blog. Can I just say, that it’s a lot of pressure not only to be writing for a successful blog, but also to be writing on a topic I don’t know too much about.

I think from my perspective that’s where I struggle. I feel like there is a huge gap between knowing about domaining and understanding what its all really about. I mean, still today when someone asks me about my dad I struggle to explain what he does to a person my age. It normally starts off with “…well, he sits on the computer a lot” and for a lot of people that already generally enough to shut off.

As I watch their eyes glaze over, I fumble and try to explain in the simplest terms what domaining is about. Bottom line is nothing about domaining to me is simple. People my age are very tech savvy when it comes to social media, computers and video games, but as soon as something as technical as domaining comes up I can see my friends (as polite as they are) just shut down. I was once the same, until I realized how interesting business can be!

Now that I am working part time for Whizzbangs Blog I have already learnt so much! I’ve been actually excited to look at spreadsheets (unlike when I was at university) and its even better when all the numbers actually make sense a little bit. But my question to you all is how do you describe what your job is to someone who has never heard a thing about domaining?

I’d love to get know many of you in the domaining industry as I know my journey has only just begun! Please leave comments and feel free to reach out to me and share your own journey!

On April 23 & 24, Domainers Meet, will be held in Dubai. It’s really shaping up to be a great event with speakers flying in from all over the world to share their intimate knowledge of the domain industry.

I have the pleasure speaking on, “Domain Name Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”. It’s a really broad topic and provides a huge amount of scope to really take a look at the history of domain investing and what the future is likely to look like. I must admit that I’m really excited about the conference and I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of new domain investors from that area of the world.

The conference is being held at the prestigious Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek. Dubai is noted for its incredible modern architecture and some of the pictures on the Radisson’s website look absolutely stunning.

If you haven’t booked your ticket to Domainers Meeting in Dubai then I would encourage you to do so. I think that it will be a great event that, like DomainFest Macau, will provide a refreshingly new perspective for domain investors. You can book tickets at http://domainersmeet.com

I will keep you abreast of new announcements from DomainerMeet as get closer to the event. In the meantime, I hop to see you there!

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.