I usally do only DN deals, but I decided to evaluate new possibilities as well, especially for pharmaceuticals and RCs. I'm glad I did because I crossed my path with this nice community during my researches
I'm sorry about what happened. I've many years of experience in this field, I gladly share some basic info to avoid getting scammed again and stay safe:
IT / Personal information safety
Learn about PGP. Always Encrypt your Address for delivery locally. Here there is a tutorial for dummies:
https://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/02/21/pgp-tutorial-for-windows-kleopatra-gpg4win/
Do not order more than one package at time, if something is going wrong or seller is an honeypot, you can just deny.
Try to get your BTC or XMR by buying them at ATM, or just ask some friends to buy from you. It's not mandatory if you do only small orders for your own usage, and it's not illegal to buy BTC either, but on a long run, if you have a lot of transactions regarding bitcoins bought is not optimal.
Don't order at your place if you have too many hot things
*always* use a VPN with a Firewall traffic blocker enabled until VPN is connected, in this way your ISP will never find out you accessed TOR/DN
If you ordered a non-pharmaceutical product or it came without blister, either lab test it or stay really low to make sure the potency is what expected!
Vendor Suggestion
You really need to crosscheck twice if not three times before ordering from a new DN vendor. First of all I suggest to always get in touch with him first, to ask some questions about the product, about the type of decay used (without pretending details of course!), the average delivery time for your country, or whatever you may want to ask.
Then you can of course check the reviews, but it's very easy to fake them. Always check the DN Forums or/and the independent DN forums or Dread to make sure this source is legit.
In most cases I always had smooth transactions by using vendors who are not too big. The vendors specifying in only one or just a few products are usually the best one, both with quality and communication.
Remember that if you can buy using the option ESCROWS, it is your right. Do no accept to finalize early if the seller is asking you to do it, unless it's posted on his public profile that buyers of certain countries have to FE due the hot country, or if buyers got less than X ratings.
It sounds very odd, but there is A LOT of buyers scamming vendors, not only the opposite.
Take care!