You were lucky. You fell to a legal scammer vs an illegal one.

The trick with a legal scam like this, is to bend over backwards if anyone complains - which they did.

An illegal one and they'd milk you in every way possible.

By the way - posting about it is a great way to save yourself if it were an illegal one; because the illegal ones want you to NOT communicate about it, and use the shame of making a mistake to encourage keeping it secret.