I suggest to buy directly in exchange than bough it in individual members here.
Reputation is very important here in this forum however it will not guarantee that they will not going to scam you someday. Having an escrow is big help but you need to also paid fees for the service they provide instead of paying fees why not use exchange its almost the same.
If buying here involves fiat, then OP would need to do some KYC and that might be a problem. Paying fees for escrow is worth it if you don't want to send KYC details, especially because you'd still need to pay the exchange fees later.
I think most escrow here won't ask you for KYC even if you deal with a large amount of bitcoin.