The risk of getting a life sentence is in most cases entirely on the vendor, not that I really see what that has to do with anything. I like the idea of escrow , but I am amazed that any vendors tolerate it. Prior to SR it just would not have been accepted by vendors. The fact that they can charge so much more here than on private forums, and also deal with so many more customers, makes up for having to risk being scammed by the customer. So in the end it still works out in their favor here, but it is because lots of people are placing small orders at big mark ups instead of a few people placing medium/bulk orders at lower prices.