Never be ashamed for being scammed, the shame is on them. Good luck.

Presenting an expected rate might help.

Any prediction without presenting reasoning is worthless. Always justify your predictions on technical or fundamental grounds.

I sent you a pm.

To big amounts, you can always use a escrow. A cheap and simple one is the system of bitmit.net

Open a thread for each of the alleged scammers on the scammer directory (including the guy that had the nerve to post in this thread: shame on him, no one can claim lack of answer to non fulfillment of a deal) and present evidence (better use scans, ops have more to do than read all the PM).
As just said, forget about trusting based on post count or status, look to vouches and never do a deal before searching the user. In case of any doubt, always send small tranches, waiting each time for his payment before sending the next one. Don't trust any user that doesn't accept to deal in small tranches. Also, ask for the address of the other party and search it on blockchain.info or cryptocoinexplorer.com to confirm he has the amounts he is claiming to have in his account.

The problem is that usually it's necessary fresh money to make the price of an asset to go up. As the price goes up, it's necessary more and more money to buy the asset at these higher prices. But if the banks are closed, it's impossible to get in fresh money. However, probably there is already enough money in the bitcoin system to make the price go up, since the price has already been much higher than the current one. Of course, this math can be complicated by the fact that many hoarders might now sell because they are scared.

Bitcoin per se is not under threat, but the exchanges that accept trading bitcoins for state money and withdraws to the banking system, might be under threat of money laundering accusations. Remember what happened to egold. The problem is that if MtGox gets closed because of pressure of the American government over the japanese government, bitcoin will survive, but its price will take a very big dip.

Great to trade with you, Fiatkiller. I answered your PMs.

I received the 700 cnc from Fiatkiller and sent him with delay (my fault, damn chinese client) not 7.5, but 8 ltc. Just sent him the transfer id.

Sorry for your loss. You can rest assure I'll pay you for the 700 I'm buying. I'll send you my address on a pm.

Give him some time, but be prepared to report him here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0

No, there isn't a too large transaction. Anyway, 700 would never be a large one.
I'm afraid you made a mistake Op, never send first without doing a search on the buyer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192892.msg2010502#msg2010502
And if someone has no reputation, better send small tranches, waiting each time for his payment.

Alright, thanks for the warning.
Better defend yourself, Op, or you are ruined here.
Report scams here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0 , present evidence and he might end up with a scammer tag.

Evidence?

I can offer you 15 btcs

Too much for me, but my offer stands in case you haven't a better one. Good luck.

15 ltc

These announces are made with the finger on the mining trigger after weeks/months of careful preparation. Their goal is not to publicize the new coin, but just to show later to everyone that they were not "premined". Off course, bitcoin was announced months before launching, but probably they consider people that make those serious announces as suckers.

No problem, I'll take your word for it. Post the amount and I'll see if I can bit it.