Hi,

I am new to escorting and have been reading these boards for quite some time now, i have now decided to register as I need some advice.

I have read what has been posted about scam agencies but I a not sure if the one titled above is a scam or not. I emailed them regarding information to join their agency and received no reply so I decided to telephone them. They didnt answer the phone until early evening (is this usual) and proceeded to ask lots of questions i.e my statistics, where i lived (i just gave general post code) etc. I asked about fees and charges and was told there wasnt any they quoted if you are being charged then its a scam. Then they said I would need to email some pictures for them to look at but i had to blank my face out, and they would contact me.

Is this normal for them to ask for pictures to be sent via email and not to want to meet you in person?

Any help is appreciated thanks



_{[Edited to remove specific agency details - we do not give publicity, good or bad, to illegal operations on SAAFE and any naming should be kept to PMs]}

There is also a thread a few down from where you have posted entitled the big scam agency thread with more info


http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=385.msg3172#msg3172

Oh and they don't have a form on their website for you to fill in, you have to ring or email them.

Hi Solitaire,

I put together an article-ish a while ago about finding a decent agency; it's in the Articles section, or just click here.

As Lorissa has mentioned, and as I wrote in my article, the best way to check an agency out is to contact them and start asking them questions. It sounds like you're perhaps concerned about not knowing exactly what a good agency should be like, though? The scam agencies article on the main site has a few tips, but basically:

* A good agency should want to meet you in person; they should be concerned about answering YOUR questions and proving to YOU that they care about your safety, your income, your boundaries

* This sort of agency is extremely rare, although they all do pretend very well

* The person you meet should be polite, professional and respectful. If they mention 'business partners', you should probably inquire further and be prepared to run a hundred miles in the opposite direction, although they may just mean receptionists, which are generally short-tempered phone-managers who play favourites, lie to you about clients (or withhold important information i.e. that the client takes drugs/pressures for bareback etc) and generally make agency work ten times harder than it needs to be

* Bear in mind that no matter how professional and friendly the agent seems, they are in fact (i.e. in the eyes of the law) a criminal - they are a pimp - and so do not ever give them your full real name, address or any other personal details. If you want to do incalls from home, better to do it independently because if you give the agent your home address, they will be texting it all over town to anyone who makes even a vague inquiry/fake booking/etc. As an indie, I would NEVER text my address to anyone, but you can often see from reviews of agency girls: "I rang the agency, booking was really easy to set up and they texted me the address"; you can only hope that that address is for a shared incall flat and not anyone's real home after such non-existent screening + confirmation procedures!

I'm getting all verbose again because there really are no limits to the ways in which agencies are not to be trusted. I'm sure that you're getting my general gist, though, so will just finish by saying: For the love of God, get your own security buddy (either through this site or anyone you know in real life who cares about you) because agencies - what with being totally illegal and whatnot - are really in no position to help you should Serious Trouble (God forbid) arise, even if they had the best of intentions. If you get robbed or assaulted, you need a real friend that you can call who will support you while you go to the police. A pimp is not going to be able to help you there even if they wanted to.

Oh, but there's good news. It looks like you've got a strong gut instinct, which is quite essential in this biz! You're clearly getting a bad vibe from this particular agency even though perhaps it's hard to put a finger on exactly why - this is exactly the sort of feeling you need to listen to! If you feel bad or uncomfortable about something, turn and walk away immediately - even if it's a ?300 booking and you're desperate. Always walk away if you don't feel right. This is the only thing that will really protect you from the various different sorts of weirdos and nutters out there - the vast majority of genuine clients are absolutely lovely, for sure, but that doesn't mean we don't also have to fend off other sorts of people constantly, too.

Again, apologies if this is too long and also if there's a query that I missed. I agree with Lorissa - better to keep looking for a better agency (have you been checking the punter forums/reviews etc? It's obviously not the most helpful PoV but it's better than nowt!) and if you've been waiting for more than an hour or two for an agent to get back to you, that's pretty much all the time you'd need to set up as indie anyway so do keep reading the resources here about that, too.

The others give good advice, but they haven't addressed the issue of "is it a scam?"

No, probably not. It seems unlikely that it's the registration fee kind, anyway. Some registration fee scams do say "you shouldn't pay any money upfront and we wouldn't ask you to", and then have vaguely sneaky ways of asking for money upfront anyway, but I doubt that's the deal here. For one thing they're covering a specific and manageable geographic region, whereas registration fee scams want to scam anyone in the world. They also don't tend to bother asking many questions, since it makes no difference to them.

An agency that isn't a registration fee scam could still be a different kind of scam, or they could be completely useless/actively harmful. To avoid being scammed, never engage in any sexual activity (stripping, blowjobs, whatever) with anyone unless you already have the full cash (no cheques or promises) amount that you've agreed to work for. This means no auditions or mates rates unless they pay you the full fee! Pay the agency only the appropriate commission for the work that you've already been paid in cash for.

Agencies are often flaky, so no it's not surprising that you had to call them. Asking for pictures is normal but you should only send pictures that wouldn't harm you if they ended up online, so blanking your face is a good thing. Good agencies will usually interview you in a public place, but there are a lot of real agencies that don't bother with meeting you.

It sounds like you're not looking at a particularly good one so look some more, but some areas only have pretty bad agencies.