Best thing you can do is invest a lot of time, effort and energy into vendor selection, especially when you are first getting started out on the road. Try sending some pm's to some established forum members and bounce some of your research findings off them to see if they will help you. It is generally frowned upon to just go asking for vendors of choice without having done some hard work yourself given we have all run the gauntlet of trying to find the honest and reliable vendors, no one is going to just offer that info up on a silver plate. Everyone gets burnt a few times in the beginning, it's all part of the learning process but don't be too disillusioned by the experience, just learn from it and move forward. It is only those who do not learn by their experiences who continue to get scammed time and time again.