.....There should be a site or forum thread hosted by the trusted 3rd party, it should list all sub 3rd parties with a trust deposit held by the trusted 3rd party, and how much that deposit is.

It should go on to explain that subcontracted 3rd party services are not entirely guaranteed, and that fact checking and current debt limits of the sub contractor should be researched prior to any funds being sent.

It should also state that only deals made in public, on that forum thread will be insured, and that to have a deal completed all parties (except the trusted) involved must confirm its completion.

It should also go on to explain that all transactions are to be screenshotted by both parties and that without screenshot proof from either side or API key proof, it never happened.

I think in this way, we could avoid the continuous workload on the trusted, and simply post the rules for all parties once, and update it as necessary.....

A character called Legit 3rd Party signs up for this chain of trust, deposits 100b with a participating trusted third party, then edits their thread to display that they are now insured by Trusted Third PartyX who confirm this in the thread, this provides reassurance to people looking to use Legit 3rd Party's service. Legit 3rd Party then waits for two people looking to buy Titans to contact them and attempts to have both of them send the ISK at the same time while skipping the steps to required to prevent a scam by the third party because as a third party insured by Trusted Third PartyX their time is valuable and everything will work out fine since they are insured anyway. If both go through now Trusted Third PartyX has to deal with the fallout. Any dissent can be reported and once deleted dismissed as trolls, because this service is insured so a scam isn't possible.

Sure there would be a vetting process, character investigations and other extra work for Trusted Third PartyX, but the above is still a possibility, one that'd hurt your reputation and possibly wallet.

If I was Chribba or some other 'trusted' EVE persona, I would run like the wind from having anything to do with such a system.

All it would mean is hassles, headaches and general un-fun'ness for what appears to be almost zero reward for those already trusted by the wider community. Indeed, such a system would have a very real chance of eroding that trust or, they wind up building up those who will eventually undercut them.

Proper posting procedures, as stated above, were not performed properly. Neither trade is insured. Next!

This does not allow the prospective new third party to build trust at all.

This is also an important point. No reputation for safe-dealing accrues to someone who has covered the exposure with a deposit, just as no reputation for honesty accrues to someone who completes a secured loan. The fact that some people do give credit for completing secure loans and probably would for secured third-partying constitutes an unfortunate flaw in those guys' thinking and I certainly wouldn't want to facilitate that kind of error, which is precisely the sort of thing that leads to scams.

tl;dr - Anyone who trusts someone more after they have completed a secured loan or secured third party work is an idiot, since the individual involved has not actually been put in a position of trust.

Raw - agreed on a technical level, but doesn't how someone conducts themself during business build a small degree of trust or maybe more accurately confidence over time?

Hey Raw a question please.

Of your entire Eve experience how much benefit do you get from 3rd party services.
Not numbers, but "yeah it adds to my enjoyment" or "it's a pain but I help people out a bit".

My gut feeling is that being a 3rd party is a probably pain in the arse for you, but you do it out of social responsibility. I'm also guessing any fees you make are small when considered against the time and effort involved. However that's all guess, and you are the one who actually knows.

Thanks for your input above, it's quite insightful seeing yours and Chribba's points of view.

Oh one last cheeky question sorry. In real life do you hold a position of significant responsibility at all analogous to your position of trust within the Eve community?