Ouch! Don't remind me. I was all set to send $1000 of bitcoin to btc-e to buy LTC at 6c, but held back because btc-e seemed a bit too dubious. FFS, learned a lot since then.
I agree. In 2013, BTC-E seemed to be the most unreliable Bitcoin exchange. The real identities of their owners remain unknown, and their support staff are unable to reply in English when support tickets were raised.
But now in 2014, BTC-E seems to be the most trustworthy exchange.
There are a lot of new exchanges popping out of nowhere. So BTC-E is pretty much the only one reliable "oldschool" exchange there is.