Introduction

The Escrow system is used for 2 things: 1) Trading and 2) Item Exchange. You might find it odd that it is located under the mission category, but the fact is that the EVE community invented the use of the Escrow system for selling and exchanging items, as it was not the intended usage, showing how ingenious our users can be.

Trading

Trading using the Escrow is very easy and convenient as it can be done remotely. Although it follows conceptually from simple item hand-off, the mechanics and consequences are slightly more complicated.

Another benefit is that the Escrow is bound by the regular market’s Solar system Market Range and can be seen by everyone within EVE, but note that the Escrow market only shows 1000 entries each time so there are a lot more items for sale than what you see if you select “See All.” To counter that you can select the other 3 options for range.

•  The new market now has many of the name items listed, so check there as well when finding the best price.

Selling on Escrow

Once explained, the system for remote trade is painfully obvious. There are four items you have to enter, which are: Price, Expire Date, Restrict to a Pilot, and Description.

Price

This is of course the price you want to get for the item you are selling.

Expire

Each contract has a maximum life of 7 days, so if this is item that will picked up immediately then you only need to enter 1 day. Even if you enter 7 days and then want to retrieve the item(s) from the escrow then you can always open the “Available Escrow Deals,” check the “Show only Escrow issued by me,” click on the Escrow contract and then press the Cancel button in the upper right corner.

Restrict To a Pilot or Corporation Member

If you have already negotiated a price with a player then enter the name of the player here so only they can claim the Escrow. Otherwise if you want to make your escrow available to all players then don’t type in anything in the restricted field.

Description

Type in a description of the item; this is what other players will see as a description of the item. There are players that list items on Escrow as high valued items when in fact they are not. These types of market hoaxes are usually noticed by other players, which give a negative personal standing towards those that practice that. That in turn will affect your reputation and might hinder you in trading later, so be aware that actions like that do have consequences even though they are perfectly “legal.”

Cost

Each Escrow transaction costs the seller 850 ISK for setting up an Escrow mission. It does not cost the buyer anything to buy using the Escrow system, other than the cost of the items, obviously.

Buying On Escrow

Buying is also quite easy, as the only thing you need to do is to locate the item you want, selecting it and pressing the “Claim Escrow” button in the upper right corner. There are though some things you should always do to prevent being the victim of a market scam.

Checking Item

Always check the item you are looking to buy by right clicking on the item and selecting “Inspect Merchandise.” This will open the Escrow Contract and display the actual content. As players have complete control over the description then the Escrow might say “Raven Battleship” and in fact be 1unit of Tritanium, and you hardly want to buy that for 100M ISK! You can also check the item itself by pressing the blue “i” button, and get complete info just as on the market.

Checking Location

Before claiming an Escrow contract (buying), you should also check the location of the item by typing in the solar system name in the search box on the People & Places window. Some of these items are in 0.0 space and if you don’t want to risk entering 0.0, don’t buy it. Alternatively you could EVEmail the seller and ask them if they can deliver.

Checking Price

This really goes without saying, but remember that there is no warning when you buy above market price as on the regular market. It is recommended that you monitor the Escrow market a bit first to get a feel for what is a good price and what is not.

Material hand-off

Sample scenarios

Your corp mate mentions he is desperately looking for an item and needs to find one in the next hour, but he is having no luck. Perhaps you have this very item in your personal hangar at your corporation headquarters, but you are currently on assignment picking up a blue print thirty jumps out. Your corp mate is at HQ, but does not have access to your personal hangar.

Your group is relocating to another region of space. It’s a long haul, but you don’t have the industrial skill to help with the move. Having scouted out the new home and rented a new office, you are there already, only without all of your equipment and minerals. Your friend is about to leave the old HQ and has plenty of room for your stuff, but you cannot give it to him without traveling all the way there (and back) again.

You are on a group mining operation far out in zero-sec space. You have just spent some hours ferrying unrefined ore back and forth from the mining site to the nearest refining station, 13 jumps away. You’ve accumulated quite a pile of Bistot and Crokite, but intend to pass it on to one of the miners with a high refining skill (who is still out in the belt). You need to leave because RL is interfering with your play time. The refining guy is 13 jumps out and you simply can’t afford to wait for him to trade him the ore - you have to log off ASAP.

Actually, all of these situations can be solved by the Escrow mission system. The four relevant characteristics of the Escrow system are: the ability to choose any item in your asset list regardless of distance, (temporary) transfer of item possession, the ability to set price to zero, and the ability to render a mission only accessible to a certain individual or corporation of your choosing.

Mechanics of transfer

The steps are identical to the ones for selling on Escrow as listed before, except that the price should be set to 0 in the price field (if you are not charging) and the name of player (e.g. TumbDrum) should be entered in the restricted field. This will allow TumbDrum to claim the escrow without having to pay anything.