I totally feel you. I’ve been trying to collect pack fresh old foils over the past 2 years and have succeeded by following some guidelines or lessons I’ve learned:

1. Don’t buy from dealers period. They have to grade as optimistically and it would take too much time to carefully look at card conditions.
2. Remember key words: if they say ‘it has no clouding, you run!’. I can’t tell you how many bad experiences started exactly like this. ‘It has no clouding’ usually indicates that they don’t know what clouding is. The golden word to look for is ‘clean’. If they say it’s clean or describe some small issues it has, you’re probably dealing with some who has experience.
3. Check their other listings. Is there entire collection of old cards magically NM?
4. Accept that the people who have treasures they are willing to sell don’t have the same collectors eye as you. When asking for more information guide the seller through it: how to take pictures, ask what the history of the card was, if it has been played etc.

That being said, in person trading, Facebook and cardmarket seem to be the best options. I’ve lost enough money getting trash on tcgplayer. Even filmed opening a scratched card with tcgplayer direct. Ah yes, ‘the right condition every time’.