Hello; I have a quick question. A SP has requested a piece of government ID before meeting with me as a screening measure. (She is with Top Drawer Ladies). This makes sense as a measure to protect workers who are meeting strange, potentially dangerous men for the first time. However, I am a little wary about sharing information online for obvious reasons. I do know that TDL has a good reputation, though.
Is that standard practice? Has anyone here offered a photo of a driver's license to a SP--have lots of people? Have you ever had any issue or unintended concequence with doing so?
It's a common safety practice, although not universal. Personally, I've sent ID to at least a dozen different providers and never had an issue (using both my driver's license and health card at different times). I've never spent time with someone from TDL so I don't know what their practices involve, but as others have mentioned, if you're booking the provider directly she's probably using her personal screening strategy that makes her feel safe (and complying with it is an excellent way to earn brownie points before the date!).
And does anyone have any tips for balancing the genuine need for SP's to have info about a client with the best practices for me to avoid potential data breaches? Identity theft is a concern with personal info; while DL's aren't a completely free ticket to identity theft, an unfortunate series of events could get such a photo into the wrong hands.
The only real tip relevant to this practice is: do some research to make sure the person you're sending the ID to is real. If they have a website, an active Twitter account, an Onlyfans page, ads on websites like Tryst, a TERB account, etc. they're probably real.
The possibility of "identity theft" is generally an unfounded concern. Providers don't put in the work involved in building their reputation (and maintaining the above-listed forms of social media/advertising) in order to jeopardize all of it with a high-risk, targeted crime perpetrated against a stranger for the benefit of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. That scenario just doesn't pass the reality test. It just doesn't happen in 99.99% of cases, because for it to happen you'd need to be dealing with someone so unhinged and self-destructive that they would ignore the obvious dangers of doing something wildly dangerous.
Also, as you correctly mention, converting access to an ID into any sort of actual criminal ploy is difficult. At that point we're talking about the kind of scam that's run by longstanding, professional criminals/organizations, not by single individuals working in a completely unrelated occupation.
You'll get some responses in here from chickenshits saying that ID screening is a huge risk, never do it, etc., but you'll quickly notice that what you
aren't getting are any credible testimonies about shared ID being used against a client unprovoked. Because, again, that would be an insanely rare situation, involving someone who is so reckless that they're willing to trash months or years of effort and accrued reputation for a small amount of money and a huge amount of potentially life-ruining risk. It takes a great deal of both naivete and paranoia to conceive of that risk as a probable outcome of sending ID, and many clients who would advise you against it are actually more concerned about the possibility of being doxxed to the spouse they're cheating on than they are about the possibility of financial fraud. They frame their fear as the latter because a person who is stolen from is a much more obvious, sympathetic victim than a person who is lying/cheating (although, for the record, blackmailing is probably about as rare/unrealistic as ID theft for all of the reasons listed above -- huge risk for a small payoff).
At the end of the day it comes down to your personal comfort level, and I have no beef with other clients who quietly choose not to take that route. But the loudmouths who lie about it being imminently perilous are always gonna catch smoke from me.
