ianccc is right, that's so true. Considering the scum I've run into as a seller over time, and as a buyer too, there are still some firsts for me. No one had ever demanded I give them the name (push) before they paid until just days ago. And he was no noob, he's a Chinese dude who knows his domain stuff. I later convinced him to trade credentials so we could do a simple Paypal which we eventually did and I didn't push the name to him until I got the payment
There's still a risk with a straight Paypal even if the other dude checks out ok, if you're the seller his payment might be no good afterwards (like a stolen Paypal account ?) and if you're the buyer he might not give you the domain, or it may turn out to be stolen. And good luck w/a Paypal dispute, I've been there. And there are other scanarios. The thing with Escrow.com is their minimum fee is $25, if it's a cheap name your loss will be magnified if you pay that fee yourself, or your profit may be $5 at the end or so. The other party will often refuse to pay 100% of Escrow.com's fee, or they'll want to split it, unless they want the domain real bad and/or they're the ones suggesting Escrow.com be used
ALWAYS PAY 100% before pushing/transferring, no exceptions