How escrow works (SmurfGuard)

Escrow is the reason a stranger will sell you an account before they have your money, and the reason you can pay before you have the account. Neither side trusts the other; both trust the sequence.

The sequence

• You pay. The money goes to the marketplace, not to the seller.
• The seller delivers — the login and email access for an account, the trade or mail for an item or currency, the run for a boost — and marks the order delivered on their side.
• You check. For an account: the login works and the email can be changed. For an item: it arrived. For a boost: the target was reached.
• You confirm. Only now does the seller's share move to them — and even then it sits on hold until the warranty window ends.

What happens if you do not confirm

If the deadline printed on the listing passes without delivery, or you report a problem, the order goes to a dispute that a human reviews. Nothing about that is automatic: no sweep refunds you by itself and no sweep pays the seller by itself — a person reads both sides and decides. See Disputes.

What escrow does not do

It does not change the publisher's rules. Buying an account, gold or a boost is against most games' terms of service, and enforcement lands on the account involved. Escrow protects the money; the warranty covers recovery by the original owner. Neither covers a ban for something you did afterwards.