How to not get scammed by your provider, Part I

Scammers are everywhere and they want you and me!

I don’t know how these people got my name and number but they seem to know me. For months I have received calls purportedly from the U.S. government warning me that if I did not do something about the illegal use of my social security number I could face a long prison term. I have asked around and I found that many other people have received this same call. None of the people I talk to are gullible enough to stay on the line to receive the solution from the caller so I cannot say they asked for money, but I am certain they would if I let them.

We are on the lookout for people who barge into our lives and try to get something for nothing, or worse, something at our expense. We expect this treatment from strangers because it is a cruel world. But what about the people we invite into our space? What do we do about the provider or the client who wants to take as much as possible and give as little as possible as a standard way of doing business? The extra treat for these people is to totally rip us off. I meet many people who show me their absolute worst selves. I think I have an insider’s view into the basest of humanity’s nature due to being identified as a sex worker. I belong to a class of people that society views as, at best, unimportant, most often, as expendable, and unfortunately, as low hanging fruit to be plucked, peeled, gutted, and then, once we are stripped down to almost nothing, tossed away. When something happens to a prostitute, the person viewing the news story (assuming a crime against a hooker is newsworthy) usually says “well, what did she expect?” and promptly forgets. I have learned from my forensic television educational programs that predators target people like me because they correctly assume law enforcement won’t care at all or won’t care as much as if we were real people. They get caught only when they accumulate numbers and there are just too many dead bodies left in public already. It is my unverifiable observation that when a man is caught for killing just one hooker that sex worker is always white. I can’t prove it but I believe I am right. [An interesting aside about my own biases, it would take proof for me to let go of a belief for which I lack proof. Hmmm, but enough about my confirmation bias.] Let’s focus on what I know: I know con artists, the up close and personal ones.

Interested in what a provider will do to rip you off? Are you a provider who wants to know the warning signs that a trick will turn ugly? I am going to share my observations. I have been called paranoid in the online discussion forum about providers for putting my screening methods in place to try to weed out the crazies after the phone call but before they reach me. Yet if something bad happened to me, people would say, “those are the only precautions she took before meeting up with strangers who want sex? That’s nuts.” Everyone’s a critic so when it comes to safety I do what I think is best, and I am well aware that by living in Oahu I am safe because this place is too damn small for anyone to get away with anything. On the mainland, i doubt I would still be here. Once I decided to ignore all my warning signs and meet up with guys who did not pass my test. The one meeting I had with a guy I would ordinarily have passed over ended with him wrenching his money out of my hands and daring me to do something about it. A more scientific study would have required me to ignore warning signs on multiple occasions for comparison purposes but I did not.

You are going to be privy to what I have learned about the people who will rob us through hard knocks, by deliberate experimentation, and from stories shared with me by self-congratulatory people who always assumed they were the smartest people in every room. I once heard if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. I like to think I have a different mindset than the thieves and can see them objectively. Of course we know that is not true. If you think I know something about the criminals you get naked with, stay tuned for the first installment of that very series:

THE CRIMINALS YOU GET NAKED WITH–WARNING SIGNS YOUR TRICK/PROVIDER IS ABOUT TO DO YOU IN

Don’t let the con artists get you–and here is a hint, they don’t look like this picture!