Oh hell, that's terrible. My condolences to you. ;(
The next time that you rent from someone, don't give them the bond money until you absolutely know that they sent the bond money off to the tribunal. Get them to sign the form in front of your eyes, and then tell them to put the form into an envelope. Put the money into the envelope yourself and put the envelope into the post box yourself (or get them to do it while you're watching them). If they ask why they have to go through all that trouble, tell them a sob story (aka, tell them that you recently got scammed, so you need to make sure of everything, which for you is true).
Then make sure that you get a written and signed agreement with the landlord or the co-tenants, whoever you decide to rent from. Keep multiple copies of this agreement! Send it to yourself in the form of an attachment, keep it on your smartphone, have 2 - 3 physical copies, etc. It's important.
You could possibly go to the people at Arc (or was it The Hub?) and ask them for advice. I'm an international student, new as well, and I attended their tenancy workshop. They gave out these forms that I think could be quite useful to you. You could ask them for that AND for advice. They might be able to do something to help you.