Well, sending money upfront to 1 post user registred yesterday (? I guess).. Sorry to say, but can not be more stupid thing to do. Sorry for your loss, but scammers here does not care at all about those threads - creating new account does not take long.
Well said, there were red flags as wide as the sky present and you didn't seem to recognize it. $166 is a lot of money but not that big to say that this is an expensive lesson to learn but it still a lesson learned regardless.