[parksy]

Pretty much this. It was a stupid mistake and it cost me dearly. My choices were to suffer and work for a few dollars a day, or suffer even more and be blacklisted in my local community, if not being dragged through the unknown depths of some legal dispute that I had no recourse to fight. And to be fair, I agreed to do it, so it was kind of on me for not doing my homework. We live and learn to protect ourselves, but when there's a glut of people who haven't learned yet it's very lucrative for people who will exploit ignorance deliberately.