If you’ve ever DMed a sex worker on social media, there’s a non-zero chance that you were actually speaking with an impersonator. It’s not your fault: many of us are search suggest banned, so when you try to find us, you see a list of convincing fakes instead of our real accounts.
Impersonators suck. They promise the moon, take your money, and give nothing in return. Let’s talk about how to suss these assholes out.
Some common red flags are:
🚩 Low-quality photos (or screenshots of photos). If something looks pixelated (think visible JPG artifact) or has a border from being poorly cropped, it’s probably a screenshot.
🚩 Watermarks that tag a different username. (Look carefully, these can be subtle!) Search for that username first. Does it still exist? If so, it’s probably the original.
🚩 Frequent misspellings/grammatical errors in their native language, especially in their bio.
🚩 Immediate demands for payment. Many legitimate dommes do require a tribute before they’ll converse over DM, but it’s not as ubiquitous as it is with scammers. The responsibility is on you to confirm their identity before you send $$.
🚩 Usernames that end with meaningless numbers (e.g. username036). We tend to be a little more creative than spam bots.
🚩 Very few followers + no followers you recognize. If you’re following a thousand dommes and none of them are following back a popular colleague, it’s probably not their real account.
🚩 Promises of suspiciously low rates. If someone offers you a rate that’s well below market and demands a deposit over DM, pause. They’re trying to take advantage of your excitement. Ask them if they’re willing to book/discuss over email instead, and then do a quick Google search for the email address they give you. Is it published on a reputable website or a major ad site?
There are MANY valid reasons why you might see each of these red flags individually, especially if you’re looking at someone who is frequently deplatformed. Our usernames change often, findommes typically require upfront payments, and every new provider to the scene has to start somewhere. But when several of these flags occur together, be wary.
So what do you do if you can’t tell if someone is a legitimate sex worker, or just a scammer?
Instead of asking them to go through the work of verifying themselves to you (this is exhausting for us to do repeatedly), do your own independent research instead. Google them! It’s free.
If you can’t find them on Google, ask them for their website. Although it’s happening more frequently, most scammers won’t put in the work to build a fake website. See if the social media account linked on their site matches the one you’re speaking to.
No website? Ask if they have a fan site instead. If they send you a link to SextPanther or OnlyFans, see if they have a verified checkmark. This means that they’ve gone through the process of verifying their real-life identity to that platform, and it confirms that they’re the one featured in their content. Send them a message through their fan site (“just wanted to confirm, are you @xyz on Instagram?”) and leave them a tip as a thank-you.
If they don’t have a website or a fan site, ask them if they exist on any major ad sites and if they can give you the censored name of whichever one they use. Don’t ask them for a link; you’ll risk getting them kicked off. Instead, head over to Eros/Tryst/Slixa/etc and look them up by name. These sites also use the checkmark to indicate that they’ve verified someone’s identity. See if their social media accounts are linked from their ad, and if not, send them an email to verify.