My, you've got quite an imagination. This was amusing to read lol. Let's break this down into actual facts from the actual horse's mouth (ie: me).
I used to not be strict with screening at all, less than a year ago. A few members from here saw me when my main source of advertisement was from TERB and Leolist. I also welcomed reviews. A few of your "own" ruined that. One of them came on here to speak strictly about identifying features like my tattoos and piercings, and at the time I was dealing with a stalker who was actively looking for me and my piercings (which I no longer have) were very identifying. I asked him to not take the review down, but to edit it and remove that part, and he ignored me. The thread was in no way shape negative about me and actually got me a few bookings from curious clients (I was still fairly new to the indy scene), but because I was losing sleep over that post and worried about my safety, I got the thread taken down. Because I did not screen the user, he knew I could not do anything and thus did not give a shit about whether him posting about me hurt me in any way shape or form.
Then after that, I had ANOTHER of your lovely members come and see me for an hour. He then came on TERB and slammed me, writing a horrible post about me that was in no way true. Why did he do it? Because some people are genuinely just assholes who want to ruin people's business because it makes them feel like big men. I found out I was not the first person he'd done this to - he targetted providers and wrote mean things about them online just for the hell of it. Once again, anonymity is the tool that allows him to do this without repercussions. He tried to mask the review too thinking I wouldn't know it was him, waiting a couple days and saying some things like "I saw her two weeks ago." Unfortunately for him his fake timeline didn't add up because I'd taken the last two weeks off to study for exams, and he was the first new client I'd seen in at least 3 weeks. Him I HAD screened, and when I reminded him of it, the reminder he was not anonymous put him right in line and he took off his nasty fake review and ghosted into thin air.
Then the "two references" roundout everyone likes to use - again, one of your own contacted me with references and refused to give any more information. I almost took the booking, and then after talking to other SPs found out this guy was widely blacklisted and thoroughly disliked in this city, and would go around making jokes of wanting to kill/rape SPs, and pretty much forced whatever he wanted on girls with zero respect for boundaries. He had references though - would go around seeing girls and being nice to a couple so he could get access to another. So if I let him access me just through references, he still would be essentially anonymous and how would I be able to hold him accountable when he tried to violate me? So I decided I didn't want that possibly "entry door" for bad guys to be open - so I stopped using references alone for screening.
Then I had an incident this summer that really drove home the message of why I'll never let down on screening - a client who I believed to be good natured turned out to be a sociopath. He actually found out incriminating information about me that can really harm me, and when I got slapped in the face with the reality this was an evil man pretending to be good, I can not tell you the amount of sleep I lost over it. I truly do believe the only reason he did not act and never will act with that information is that I screened him. If he uses that information in any way against me, I will hit him with a lawsuit. If he was anonymous and I had no recourse to hold him accountable for his actions, that man could have really fucked up my entire life.
I can not and never will deny that there do exist bad people in this world that can use clients's information against them for bad. But we all have to realize this industry does not exist without any kind of risk, on both clients's and providers's ends. Providers take on a ridiculous amount of risk just through the nature of this work, and I am sorry, but expecting me to carry the risk of seeing clients anonymous so YOU guys have no none, is incredibly unreasonable. When you ask me not to screen, you're asking me to open the door to all these horrible people and having zero recourse to holding them accountable. I can not do that. I need to survive and watch out for my safety. Screening allows me to do that. I do not sit there stealing people's money.
FYI: I actually also recently lifted my No Review Policy. As I've gotten more comfortable with the way I screen and pick my clients, the fear that I'm going to take on a client that is going to harm me or write a vindictive review just to be an ass to me has subsided. I no longer need an NRP. I don't expect them to ever be on TERB though - I just don't really cater to the kind of sessions most of you guys are looking for here, and my clients are generally not reviewers. Most of my clients book for longer durations and I only work maybe 5/6 days a month with mostly only taking on one client a day. I actually got my first review in months recently, but it's on Private Delights.
I actually turn down more business than I take on. This again comes with what I mentioned above of getting better at screening and feeling out my ideal kind of clientele, something I've learned to master with time. It's actually very bad business practice for me to take on clients I'm not good matches with - if I don't like a client, I can't give him a good session, and if I can't give him a good session, he'll probably be unhappy and more likely to write a negative post about me somewhere. I'm quite financially savvy and save up a lot of my money so that I don't feel pressured nor tempted by the money to take on calls I know won't be good for me. Desperation and greed are very bad things for providers.
I enjoy my job a lot. More now than ever, as I've learned to navigate what works for me and doesn't, and the best kind of clients and sessions that work for me. I'm also very transparent about the fact I'm in full-time school. I am not "lazy" and incapable of pursuing a career - my end goal is to get my PhD and I don't work that often (as mentioned, I only book about 5/6 days a month) because I need to get top grades to get into my grad school of choice.
The TERB advertisement section is public to non-registered users. You guys (the posters) aren't the only ones booking girls on here.
I don't advertise much on TERB anymore because it's not giving me the returns like it used to.
Again, I'm extremely transparent. Up until this summer I was charging $300-350 an hour and getting enough clientele off here. I was fine with single-hour calls. Then I moved out of the city. It actually takes me about an hour to commute downtown, more if traffic is bad, and I'm in class 4 days of the week. It no longer became worth it for me to come all the way downtown for what was 4-5 hours of work (commute + getting ready + call + clean up + commute) and less than $300 net pay when you take into considering incall fees + gas. I increased my hourly to $400 to dissuade this. It still didn't feel like enough to compensate for my time, so I increased to $500. The only time it would be worth it for me was if I had more than one call a day, but this was such a gamble because it doesn't always end up neatly like that, and also the fact I don't particularly enjoy 1hr calls and I'd much prefer to book a multi-hour call on a day I'm working than 2-3x single hour calls. So what was my cost for "fine I'll do the 1hr!"? $500. If you look at my site, I actually only offer 60 and 90m sessions for outcalls because it takes away some of the cost (mostly time + incall fee), and my incall minimum is 2hr for reasons I already mentioned.
My clients - and I'm talking about the clients I see, the people who actually end up in sessions with me, not the general client base (many of which, as I have mentioned over and over already, are NOT my ideal clientele) or the ones I like to make fun of (because those are NOT my clients) - are far from "desperate losers" and "suckers." I think quite the opposite of them - I hold them to high esteem and have deep admiration and respect for them.
I also collect deposits not to steal them, but because I can not afford people cancelling on me. I see so few clients every month and plan my dates mostly weeks/months in advance, and if I'm going to allocate time to work, it means moving my schedule around my school schedule. And anyone who's been to university knows that most of the work for school is OUTSIDE classes and I have a heady workload with weekly assignments, labs, tests etc. I neatly plan my life around. If I have it on my calendar that Tuesday night is the day I'm working, I have an appointment booked with Bob 4 weeks in advance and decided since he wants to see me for 4hrs that he's the only client I'm seeing that day, sometimes even that WEEK, I don't take on more clients for that Tuesday. Then Bob decides 12 hours before our booking he'd rather see someone else / spend the money elsewhere / stay late at work, not having a deposit means he's free to cancel on me with no repercussions. Now Bob has just fucked up my entire week.
Once again, there will always be a level of risk when it comes to this industry. I know girls steal deposits - my own clients have told me many stories of it. I can not deny this is a reality. The most any of us can do, as clients and providers, is to minimize the risk. And I'm doing MY part as a business owner to minimize the risk on my end through screening and deposits. And you guys do it here too, you share stories of deposits being stolen and the business of the perpetrator suffers greatly cause of it. It's a stupid thing to do - why would anyone sane steal a few hundred bucks at the cost of their entire revenue?
I've never stolen a deposit nor blackmailed a client. I never will. I'm not that desperate for a few hundred dollars, I have so much money saved up. I'm happy to delete information after screening if it makes clients feel less jittery about their info being stored. A client of mine shared this concern with me recently, and I went on my email right in front of him and deleting every trace of his information from all of my devices. It put him more at ease with me, and led to a better overall time, and this is something I ask clients to do with me (put me at ease with them), so I returned the sentiment. He even texts me from a texting app now instead of his real # and I'm cool with it because I know who he is.
Another FYI - I only ask for 25% for my deposits (30% if it's a FMTY). I don't ask for more because I only use deposits as a form of commitment on the client's end to put me at ease he's serious about seeing me. I don't actually like 50%+ deposits, cause then when the session comes I get less cash and I feel like I'm getting paid less lol. I had a client send me 100% 2 months in advance (his request, not mine), and I didn't like it because then the day of the booking it felt like I was working for free.
I tried to write this as civilly as possible and not to ignite more drama. As much as I like it sometimes, I'm just not in the mood today.
If anyone was curious more about why I screen, I have a whole guide on it on my website. I don't have paid advertiser status right now and don't want to get flagged for trying to advertise here (I'm not), so I'm not sharing the link, but if you go on my website you can find the page "Screening FAQ".
