Golem

Oh for crying out loud. The website went down. It came back up with a new pop-up element that wasn't there before. The simple explanation is that it was down briefly as part of the change to its content. That's normal. Nothing to be ashamed of! Making site upgrades is good! Instead, the site's rep gives us a vague, unprovable and untestable accusation of financed DDoS attacks purchased by the site's competitors. There is no explanation of what leads them to believe that. THIS is the reason people worry about the integrity and trustworthiness of friendboy.pro.

I agree with dropping the "dislike" icon. Unlike the others, that one isn't constructive, it's just a value judgment. Will lead to bad feelings and I'm not sure what it really adds beyond that.

I have never wanted to be in Indianapolis more than I do right now...

Even very small deposits have a different drawback: most clients don't want to be linkable by a recorded financial transaction, for obvious reasons. In theory there are ways around this, but they get complicated. I suppose part of the answer has to be to develop a good flakedar...

If a thread has multiple posts, though, that would mean you can delete other people's content.

Between the ad text consisting of superlatives & emojis, and the 1 star review from 6 days ago, that definitely seems possible.

Oh, good, this flamewar-tempting topic again. I missed it. Glad to see all the old faces are ready to go again The "different site" argument is kind of hilarious. Call it what you will, this site is indisputably a direct iteration of the original site, just a generation or two down the line. May have a different CMS, may have different admins (though I see nothing that indicates this to be the case), may have improved ethical practices (I truly and sincerely hope for the best in this regard). Seriously though, I do hope for the best here. Although the inclusion of "scores" is awesome, it also makes me worry -- I mean, it's pretty transparent what those are. While I can't imagine that leaving those off guarantees safety these days, putting them on when other sites don't does kind of seem like tempting fate...

I chatted with him for a while last year. Definitely seemed real and like a nice if perhaps disorganized guy; he had that endearing/frustrating cluelessness teenagers sometimes have about the reality of people having jobs, schedules, etc. (The timing didn't work out for us either.)

Keith makes a really good point. Earlier someone pointed out that clients typically have "twice the life experience" of providers. Well, that also means -- right now -- that clients typically began their adult lives under an economic climate that was dramatically more favorable for people beginning their careers. (Let me be clear, this is a generalization. Individual experiences obviously vary. But the numbers are what the numbers are.)

Brian -- come hang out in Boston again, eh?

Also, none of this is specific to providers in this industry. When people have to borrow money... it's because they don't have enough money. Outside of act-of-god catastrophe situations, that doesn't happen out of nowhere. So needing to borrow really does correlate with being unlikely to easily pay back the borrowed money, no matter what industry you work in.

Report back please! Would love to hear.

("Her" or "them" or just avoid the pronouns in the first place. I enjoy the latter because of the awkward sentences it leads to -- as I find that tends to wake people up and make them realize how different things are when you don't assume one gender.)

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but this sounds like an awfully broad statement. What leads you to believe this is a common thing, rather than a rare one?

Oh dear. That is an actual excerpt from the actual Dear Abby column. From today. Yikes.

One thing to be aware of: although he advertises in Boston, he now lives in Marlborough, which is close to an hour west. This is a semi-recent move.

The lack of face pics, at least previously, were because of privacy concerns around his other career. I believe he's now doing this full time, but probably found that things worked fine without the pics so hasn't seen a reason to add them now. He's a good guy. Among other things, hehe.

I'd also be curious for any reports. He's a new listing (at least in Boston).

Boston, plz. ^_^ Coming here would be an easy leg, and then you get to fly out of a less inconvenient airport. (Or vice versa.)

PM me for info.

As I am also in touch with the client, I've asked him to confirm this statement with me directly. I sincerely hope he does, I too would love for you to stop screaming about this

I give up. Believe what you want to.

THE PLOT THICKENS. Two days ago I emailed the user who left the review. After verifying that I was not investigating him, he sent me the following explanation today: "He phoned me the next morning to apologize and to tell me he knew he’d not been at his best and had been totally exhausted and to invite me again to meet with him, this time for free. It was wonderful. I’m contacting RentMen to ask that my review be retracted." According to the client -- who is now speaking very positively of WB -- 1) the meeting did take place, 2) WB simply was exhausted and actually did perform at a two-star level, and 3) the contact from WB did not take place until the following day. So, we now have two completely different stories. Neither of which is damning to WB as far as his professionalism or performance goes. But you keep bolding "liar" despite the fact that there is no evidence for such a claim -- only two conflicting stories. Personally, I do not see any reason to believe either one over the other.

I thought the dates on RM are the dates the review was made? And to the facts, again, we don't know they didn't meet.