I want to share an email I received from Escrow.com late last week. I have a payment plan deal in effect at Escrow.com, and the email was to notify the buyer and me about a banking change that will impact payments. Here’s an excerpt from the email with the key information:
“We would like to inform you due to we have made the commercial decision to part ways with Wells Fargo bank recently and the account has now been closed, therefore all payments sent to the Wells Fargo account will be rejected and returned.”
While this deal impacts a payment plan, buyers should also note the change. I have a default wire transfer template set up to send a wire to Escrow.com’s Wells Fargo account. Escrow.com has been using other banks for the last few years, so I generally do not use this wire transfer default. However, if I didn’t buy domain names regularly or I didn’t notice the change because I regularly received the Wells instructions, this would be important to note.
Based on this email, I assume that Wells Fargo would reject wires sent to the old and now inactive Escrow.com account, but if there is any delay in returning funds it could be problematic for a buyer looking to close a deal right away.
I reached out to Escrow.com GM Jackson Elsegood and he shared more information about why the company is making this transition:
“Escrow.com uses a number of different banks around the world and we assign new transactions to the bank that we believe offers the best feature set. We have used Citi for a number of years and recently have moved a significant portion of our transaction volume there to take advantage of their faster processing times and direct access to local settlement systems for non-US customers.
For customers performing regular transactions, they will automatically see updated payment information for their next transaction with us. For our Domain Name Holding customers, we have been reaching out to each individually to make sure that they are aware of the change in bank details.”
Customers should be sure to confirm payment details before sending wire transfers to Escrow.com.
This seems abrupt. Why wouldn’t Escrow.com keep the Wells Fargo account active to avoid disruption while they transition to a new bank?
I’m guessing the decision wasn’t Escrow.com’s. And if it was their decision, it was a very poor one.
I don’t understand why Escrow.com make changes so quickly. There needs to be a transition period.
I had a buyer wire a payment Thursday on a holding transaction, we got this email Friday. Now buyer has to see if payment was returned and resend.
Looks like they were in such a rush, that they did not proof read the message.
Didn’t care to inform the rest of us who use them but don’t have payment plans currently….
I would imagine they are sending the emails as the payment due date approaches, but I think they should have sent out an email to all payment plan customers in advance.
Like others have said, it seems odd to just close it and not leave it open while people switch over. its going to cause problems for people on payment plans for sure.
Is it just me, or was there no “We are sorry for the inconvenience”?
I do not think it was just you.
I guess that sentence isn’t used much these days 😑