Scared of HitBTC Exchange - Bad Reputation for Ripping People Off

Happy New Year everyone! I know they said that scared money don't make money but in this case, I'm a proud chicken. I've spent several hours researching new technologies to invest in. Looking at websites, reddits, twitters, forums, write papers...etc. I figured that since my portfolio went up 153+% in less than a month, I've got a handle on this right? Nope. I found coins that lead me to questionable exchanges to get them and then running my money back out before I could even get the ALT coin I wanted. See, what happened was, I've been purchasing all my coins with ETH because I was told is was faster... :/ Only the exchange I visited, wouldn't let me purchase the alt coin with ETH, only BTC. And it wouldn't let me trade ETH for BTC... so I got stuck. When I went researching for help, I found people screaming all over the place about how the exchange (HitBTC) was a scam and I might not get my money back. Well, the exchange charged me $7+ flat rate withdrawal fee's just to get my money back out. I'm at a place in my walk with crypto right now where if it isn't listed on Binance or Bittrex, I'm probably not going to mess with it. I'd rather be safe than sorry.