Hi, new to the board here, have a question seeking recommendations.  

Advance deposits are a bad idea in general, unless you know the lady very well.  

...and sounds like she has no respect for the verification service as well. Her reputation isn't important to her. Consider it a loss and move on.

by PM request to avoid the sob story response.

Your options are limited. You can inform the verification service that they have a ROB on their site, it wont help you but it may help another guy if they kick her off the site.  
 When you see she's coming back to town mention her less than honorable behavior on the local board, that might not help get your money back but it should piss her off and that's worth something.  
The idea that she can't pay you back because she already spent it is BS because she would have enough to repay you as soon as she rips off the next guy.  
 What it comes down to is that you will never see your money and you bought yourself an expensive lesson.

I would've let it go awhile ago if I were you but it is fine that you did not. At this point, the benefit out the doubt period is long gone and that is very unprofessional of her. I'd say cut your loss before you end up wasting more time and potentially more money.

...and I do not use/spend them, until after I have visited with the gentleman.  

Thank you all, I will contact the verification service again and leave it at that if nothing else happened.

One of the most popular such services is P411 and if that is the case, contact Gina and be prepared to send her your paper trail of emails where the woman admits she took your money, and they will deal with her rather harshly, most likely kicking her off the site if she doesn't make it right.

Post the story on your regional board w/o naming her in public.  Tell the guys they can PM you for her name.  That's what I did when it happened to me.  In my case, I was only out time and gas money.  For future reference, I'd avoid providers asking for a healthy deposit.

I say "out the bitch" she didn't just flake on you, she stole from you.  

she has your money & has done nothing to earn it.  Scammers will suddenly become hard to reach or just ignore your requests.  After the word gets out, they'll reinvent themselves with a new name & proceed to scam a new crop of guys.   As a general rule, deposits should not be required.  I have never paid a deposit.

Your theory presupposes that providers all have full calendars and routinely turn away business, if that was the case we would never read posts asking why business is so slow.  
 She doesn't need to have zero calls to realize she isn't making enough to cover her expenses. It sounds like she tours through his town occasionally and a little bad publicity can quickly turn a successful trip into a bust.

and "outing the bitch" will certainly impact the business she gets from TER, especially since it's not a gray area regarding looks or performance which are highly subjective. Here the woman flat out stole his money, it takes a lot for people to get past a 100% ripoff. perhaps enough guys will flat out post on his regional board that she WAS on their "to do" list, but after reading about her dishonesty they no longer want to see her. Now THAT might be enough for him to even get his money back. Probably not, but better than the zero chance that he appears to have now.

I didn't recommend naming her publicly because you never know how she will react.  In this case, since she actually accepted his money, naming her might not be a really bad idea.  I'd just prefer avoiding the possible shitstorm that might happen if I named her in the post.  FWIW, I got about a couple dozen requests for the provider's name, which I happily gave them.  She's still active since she got a review not too long ago.

She deserves any shit storm she gets.  

True both in and out of hobby.  

Why would you pay a deposit? There are too many ladies out here that do not require this upfront money. Just stick to ladies who don't. The only time you should be paying a deposit is maybe if you were booking a really long date or perhaps an overnight......and if that is the case it should be with someone you have already seen before whom you know and trust well. Otherwise do not do it because  you do not have too.