Another proof that the average newbie has no help from a trust system that he does not understand at all, despite the warnings that existed in the scammer profile. In my opinion, the forum has a bad policy towards such things - such members should not have the opportunity to be present at the forum, but the only thing we can do is try to warn others about such members.
But OP was also sort of negligent. If only he had done some due diligence before sending the scammer money, he would have seen some red flags like he has noticed now such as the large number of deleted replies in the scammer's thread.
Further still, I don't think the trust feedback system is too complicated for a newbie to become suspicious that something is up with certain profiles. All they have to do is to open the trust page, and they will see the feedback if the account was already tagged.