They had yellow "be careful" flags up until now.
Oh..yes. Yellow box was visible, not "old red box".
I am failing to understand how OP missed all tags

Poster said in post #3:
found him here. said warning but figured no scam for 10$. only for 10$ took a chance.
Yes, but that doesn't make much sense. This was in warning:
"Login to see the detailed trust ratings"Scam accusation:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1663453.0 ~30$.
Scam accusation:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2099774.0 for 15$
Also, there are several negative ratings for amounts between 10-20$, and still, OP figured they won't scam them for 10$?
