What is the proper procedure in purchasing a hosting company for example?

If the company has for example 300 clients. Would you purchase 50% upfront or the entire client list?

For example using paypal as a form of payment of the clients. Would this be advisable?

I am just wondering how other companies purchase other companies if they are not well known.

Depending on the about of money involved, if I didn't know the seller very well I would use an escrow service.

Blue,

Thank You for posting that. Many people are caught up int he whole PayPal payments / Fraud. We went to purchase clients with a contract using paypal and the individual ending up running. If it was not for my Capital One hassle credit card with fraud protection I would have been out some money.

moneybookers.com has escrow services and that is an excellant idea. In matter of fact, we use it when purchasing a design from a company in India. It has a little cost to it but it is well worth it.

Can someone recommend an escrow service that would actually work with clients and not a company?

I'm looking to purchase clients from another company but so far from what I've seen, escrow only covers domains and sites and not actual clients or companies.