What is an inexpensive way to place funds into escrow for an online transaction?

Your bank will put a hold on your check only if you tell it so, however, if the cheque was made as a payment beforehand, this could possibly go against you. Banks (retal banking) does nto handle escrow or escrow related issues. They simply honor your check. US$ 1,500 is too low (small an amount) for any trade / transactions banking group to be involved in - they would handle this via a Letter of Credit (LC), of which the fees would vary, but would not normally be around 1% or US$ XXXX which ever is higher.

In short, other than Escrow.com - not much out there to trust.