Sorry if this is in another topic, the searches I did only showed comments from 2016 as the most recent responses. I'd like a little more 'post pandemic' perspective.
Recently chatting with a 'provider' and I'm interested. Finally get around to his fees, after a little more back and forth than I prefer, and we agreed to rate I thought reasonable. He asked me to cashapp him half up front. I've had issues with the app before, thought I had been hacked etc. and told him I wouldn't use cash app. His response is to tell me to go buy a specific gift card, and tell him when I've gotten it.
To be clear, I don't have any reason to hire this guy at this point now. The final straw for me was the gift card request, my question is if other providers are really doing this now? I get the options of leaving the money out, maybe paying part when they get there etc.
Thankfully our correspondence has only been via message, I don't feel like I've been on the phone with a scammer for an hour that has asked this, but it's not far off...