Escrow (Pending) for IMVU Creators

Share this article! Here's a short link you can use: http://im.vu/help811

This is a re-post of a Forum announcement made last September 2011.

Starting September 12, 2011, we have instituted a delay before Creators receive Credits earned from the sale of virtual goods in the Catalog. This delay is called Credit Escrow (previously "Pending" or "Credit Pend").

What is Credit Escrow? 

Previously, Creators immediately receive their credits when another user buys one of their products or its derivation. Since Credit Escrow is implemented, Creator credits will be placed in escrow, a kind of a holding account, and not added immediately to available credit balances at the time products are sold. The credits placed in escrow will not be immediately available for the Creator to use or transfer. The Creator will have to wait for a certain period of time, discussed below, before the credits are available to use or transfer. 

This escrow process is similar to the real world process of cashing a check. When you cash a check, it isn’t immediately available for withdrawal. The bank won’t make the check’s funds available until it “clears” (when the check writer’s bank says that the writer had enough money in their account to cover the check). 

Many other online businesses also use a similar approach in order to protect buyers and sellers. Apple, for example, doesn’t release money to an iPhone application developer until 45 days after the end of the month of the purchase to ensure safety in a transaction. 

Why Escrow? 

We are implementing the new credit escrow process to protect the integrity of the IMVU economy and discourage credit theft, payment fraud, UFI content submission, and account takeovers. We are protecting Creators, users and IMVU. 

We want everyone’s IMVU experience to be fun and safe. Like you, we wish everyone followed the rules, but the reality is that there are people looking to “beat” the system at your expense. Often, by the time IMVU becomes aware of some of these activities, the Credits have been used and are impossible to trace, harming Creators, users, and IMVU. 

In particular, we’ve noticed that Creator accounts tend to be targeted for account takeovers since they usually have larger Credit balances than average users. Account takeovers and other types of fraud harm Creators the most, since large amounts of artificially generated Credits in the economy decrease their value for you. 

Credit Escrow will help both you and IMVU dramatically diminish fraudsters. Importantly, Credit Escrow will help us to restore Credits to the rightful owner. 

How Will Credit Escrow Work?

Only Credits will be placed in escrow. Promotional Credits will not be placed in escrow, so developer tokens will still be available for immediate use if the purchases were made with Promotional Credits. 

Creators will be able to see how many Credits they have in escrow as well as when those Credits will be available in a new section of Creator Reports titled Escrow Schedule. 

In almost all cases, Credits in escrow will become available to Creators after 14 days. However, if a customer made the purchase with fraudulently obtained Credits, and IMVU discovers the fraud prior to the end of the escrow period, then IMVU will reverse the transaction. 

Should this happen, the Creator will be sent a message with the details, the Credits involved in the transaction will be removed from the escrow account, and the product purchased with the fraudulent Credits will be removed from the purchaser’s inventory.