I find that networking and trading is a double edge sword. Because trading is so personal, most people aren't in the position to actually help any one individual trader other than generalities, and these you can just pick up from the net. Once a trader becomes successful, there is simply no need for anyone else. Its not like the real world where even though you might land a great job, its still important to maintain a group of connections because you might find yourself looking for work again and need to use your contacts.
The trading world is full of people seeking help who know nothing, and people offering to help, who don't know much as well, and perhaps even have sinister motives. Once traders figure things out, disappearing is the best course of action.
There are of course some specific areas where this doesn't apply, such as cases like this where a trader needs to get matched up with a firm, but these are issues outside of trading strategy and such. So not having built up a network is I think absolutely fine.
I think if you have an edge and know how you trade, you're the guy in the position of power.
Have you ever heard or something like
https://www.topsteptrader.com/ ? I can't vouch for them, and I don't even believe that this is the best option for a trader who knows how to trade, but I think they are legitimate enough that you can at least demonstrate if you can trade or not. Passing some thing like this would I imagine be a good thing, but at the same time, this might just be something for the daydreaming regular folk who think they can make it big trading from home during their lunch break. The prop world, where a trader might actually have access to several million dollars of buying power is more than likely a whole different ballgame.
Since you did say though that regular prop firms wouldn't look at you and hence you had to go with a shady operation, then perhaps you're not consistent enough yet, so that might be a problem, but this is certainly out of my domain of interest and expertise.
