I have not been scammed with this kind of offer, however, I have been scammed many times, in many ways. Once I was trying to create an off shore bank account. I found a book that offered to provide all information to create off shore bank account. I paid $10 for the book, but when I checked the book I found that it did not have any information instead asked more money for details. I did not know creating off shore bank account was not possible until you visited the country where the bank is based, thus I was scammed,
I don't trust anything that wants you to pay to sell their things. If you want to sell things online without having to a pay for the goods up front, you could do affiliate marketing. There are good companies like Clickbank, Amazon Affiliate, and Ebay has one but I can't remember what it's called exactly. They let you do it for free though Amazon Affiliate requires you to have a blog or website, if I remember correctly. Sorry for your loss, it sucks to be scammed. Thanks for posting, I'll keep this in mind for the future.