MaverickHunter, your conspiracy theories are nonsense.
Let's face it, the average person doesn't see the value in a duo and when both providers are priced at their usual hourly rate a duo isn't great value, it's more of a bucket list item or a celebratory event. The higher price point you are at the lower your closing rate will be so expect an increase in inquiries asking about service details, pricing, pictures etc.
As far as fake bookings, there is no motive for the average person to book and then vanish. You will probably get the odd individual who gets cold feet and vanishes but it's more likely a play amongst the competition trying to dissuade you from operating as an independent.
Demanding down payments is effective but you alienate yourself from the majority of the market, hence why most don't make it mandatory.
A more logical approach would be to give a discount and priority booking for those willing to give a downpayment. That way there is incentive to the client to do so.
"Average" is doing a lot of work in these contentions of yours.
We're not talking about "average" people, we're talking a specific group of abusive misogynist clients who harass SWs as a sort of sadistic hobby. It's bizarre that you're downplaying this reality, given that you've been a poster here for so long, and have inevitably seen firsthand evidence of the existence of these types of people (ie. the "former poster" several people have mentioned in this thread).
I haven't been posting here as long as you, and I *still* witnessed that poster:
- assemble a massive Google document of all the Black SWs working in Ottawa (including their pictures, contact information, and working address details without consent)
- assemble a massive Google document of other Ottawa SWs (including their pictures, contact information, and working address details without consent)
- assemble and share 1-2 massive Google documents about contacting/manipulating SWs and the process of "TOFTT" while trying to extract information/concessions from them
So you pretending that people like that don't exist is baffling. It means you either have a godawful memory, were too dull to know what you were looking at when that poster was publicly sharing those materials on this forum, or are conveniently forgetting them to accommodate your motivated reasoning.
It's ludicrous to think that all the fake bookings is due to the work of a single person in an attempt to have a provider lower their rates. There is no motive, booking a provider then standing her up isn't going to make her lower her rates. The logic isn't there.
This is a competitive move that is brought on by organizations to strong arm independent providers. If you are constantly stood up in the booking process you have two options, find another profession or have someone else take care of the booking for you. Look to your competition not a snickering trouble maker.
Nobody really said flat-out that it was a single person doing all of this. They just said that doing this was something that a forum member explicitly boasted about doing, and it matches his MO. He is certainly not the only bitter client who strives to waste SWs' time and energy with those strategies, just a specific individual we were most familiar with on here.
Logic does not come into it. These assholes do it for pleasure, out of an aggrieved sense of revenge, or a puritanical desire to punish sex workers. I bet some of these guys aren't even clients, they're just conservative/religious weirdos with an axe to grind.
There also seem to be plenty of "tire-kickers" who contact providers when they aren't serious about booking (or are contacting multiple people at once while trying to suss out the most favourable deal for themselves).
On the subject of deposits, there are many providers who require them, and somehow remain booked solid and very successful. So when you say something like taking deposits will "alienate [a provider] from the majority of the market" it's obvious that you're engaging in a scare tactic. You have no evidence that the client base who are willing to send deposits is not large enough to support any number of providers. To be sure, a provider's potential client base will be larger if they
don't take deposits, but that has zero bearing on whether they will be able to secure enough bookings for their needs if they
do take deposits (because the time they spend working is finite, and their goal isn't to have an infinite amount of clients).
It's incredibly wild how inconsistent your claims are, MaverickPunter.
You literally said this:
Harassing, time-wasting texts from a client to get a provider to lower her rates? Totally illogical, totally impossible.
Harassing, time-wasting texts from a competitor to get a provider to quit being indy? Now
THAT makes sense.
considering I haven’t upped my 2013/2014 rates 
red flag towards other scams. Most scammers expect that most won’t call the police or want to explain to their banks etc. 