:facepalm: When will users learn to use escrows or at least view the trust rating of the person they are dealing with first.
I did my research. I examined librty thoroughly for a long time before entering a deal. At the time of my deal, he appeared to be a trustworthy user. Following my deal is when other postings appeared that accused him of the same thing, and is when the negative trust was posted to his account.
I am new, and so I 1) did not fully understand escrow, 2) did not think that it was worth it for only $20, and 3) got the impression that since I was new and librty was not, he was unwilling to do escrow. Sure, this was probably a sign of what was to come -- but I decided to take the leap and trust for the $20. I had already waited about a week for the BTC to be deposited into my Coinbase account (I did not have my debit/credit card linked at the time, and so the BTC purchase was not immediate), and did not feel like waiting much longer to deal with escrow. Again, this was my mistake.