Escrow Versus No Escrow
The single choice that decides whether your money can disappear is whether the market uses escrow. With escrow, your funds are held until you confirm. Without it, they sit in a wallet the platform controls, and a wallet the platform controls is a wallet the platform can take. This is the difference, stated plainly.
What no escrow means
On a market without escrow, your deposit goes into a platform wallet. The vendor ships, you pay, and the money is the platform problem from that point. If the platform is honest, you are fine. If it is not, or if it simply goes down, the balance is gone with it. That is the exit scam, and it is only possible because the money was in one place the operator controlled.
What escrow changes
With escrow, the money is held in a contract that releases on your confirmation. The platform is a holder, not an owner, and it only signs in one direction when a dispute needs it. The operator can go down, but it cannot take what is in escrow. That is the structural difference, and it is the first thing to check on any market before you put a real balance on it.
How to tell them apart
Read how the market describes its payments. If it talks about a single wallet, a balance, or a deposit that the platform holds, that is the no escrow model. If it talks about a hold that releases on confirmation and a dispute that freezes it, that is escrow. The wording tells you which one you are dealing with, and it is worth reading before you fund anything.