Sounds like Thailand may not have the legal protections required to make real estate investment safe. Sounds like you did everything carefully and still got scammed. This makes me think Thailand may not be a wise place to buy property.
The site would help reduce future scams like this by steering people to less corrupt places.
And in any country I think off the plan development is highly risky. You are trusting building companies famous for going bankrupt substantial amounts of money. Plus they may not build what they sold you on.