*Yet another warning about deposits

[TBD]

15 minutes ago, Austin Lewis said:

I'm surprised no one has encouraged me to identify the culprit. I'd like to spare other guys the risk of dealing with this man, but maybe naming-and-shaming isn't the right thing to do.

for me, without a name attached to it, the complaint means nothing.  I had an issue with a provider (non-deposit related) and when I posted here about it, the provider was suddenly very quick to want to resolve it. I would imagine you will have similar reaction, so I encourage you to do so. 

 

side note - I have followed this simple common sense rules -  SMALL deposit ($50 max and/or uber covered) to well reviewed provider both here and rentmen, and never to a provider who lists or indulges in PNP.  Any and all horror stories I hear on these forums people have deviated from these common sense rules. 

 

[TBD]

5 minutes ago, FrankR said:

Adding it to this thread will add little value - will get lost. If the provider has his own thread, I would add a comment there…that you don’t recommend him with whatever details you are comfortable with. Or start a thread on him if he does not have a thread. That way members will actually be able to see the comments when they look at his thread.

agree with everything you have said except it will have value - we will all see it.  I want to know who it is. 

[+ KensingtonHomo]

On 3/8/2026 at 7:29 PM, josh282282 said:

the more the escorting community for gay men is full of guys who WILL pay a deposit, the escorting pool attracts more and more shady criminals who want to steal from and victimize us.  Sure, there are escorts who are genuine and provide their services with a deposit with no problem!  But word of mouth/advertising of deposits make our hiring community like a tourist hot spot in a beautiful country: a place for criminals to go to target easy prey.   Ruins everything. 

So don't think just because you paid a deposit and your particular escort is honest that that choice alone does not add to the problem.  It does.  It makes all of us who hire more at risk for others to victimize and harm us, just like acting like a tourist in touristy areas makes those areas less safe.  Escorts who take deposits and run inevitably provide (if they show up) bad service to us.   They are not going to do all the things you want them to do.  They will be horrible providers.  They only want our cash.  We dont want to encourage them to advertise escort services. 

Protect not only yourself (NO DEPOSITS!) but protect your brothers and this wonderful hiring community-  no deposits!!

Okay, do you have any evidence for this wild claim? This is essentially "girls are attracting rapists by how they dress." I grew up visibly gay in NYC and suffered more than my fair share of bullies, getting jumped, etc. It actually made me incredibly tough and resilient. 

We can't discuss politics here but there are many more real threats to gay men and other queer people in the US than losing $50 to a guy pretending to be an escort. 

Seven years into this - frequently making nominal deposits - I've had one guy flake on me. 

I also met up with a provider in person at a bar near my hotel once. Unfortunately, he brought up some controversial topics where we didn't agree. When I went to the bathroom to think of how I would explain to him I didn't want to follow through, he vanished. Worse, he left my coat and messenger bag alone to anyone who wanted to rob it and - of course - I had a $30 bar tab (and I don't drink). The funny part is that I was planning to offer him $100 for his time. 

[Venite]

On 3/8/2026 at 7:29 PM, josh282282 said:

A NOT BEFORE DISCUSSED REASON TO SAY NO TO DEPOSITS:

Hi all again.

Many men on this thread on the debate of deposit/no deposit have read the unfortunate tales of victimization that some of our community members have described when they provided a deposit in the past- the escort took their deposit money and ran.  Its a horrible experience to be a victim. 

Consider this:

There ARE criminals out there.  And they seek out vulnerable and seemingly weak victims.  And many people in society think gay/bi men are weak.  Even if you disagree we are a weak people, many others will disagree with you. 

Many of us were victimized in our youth by a society that despised gay men or any boy with seemingly weaker attributes.  Tragically, being bullied and harmed is not a rare event for many gay men in their past history.

Yet, when you provide a deposit, this actually creates more gay/bi victims.

And these victims are your brothers. 

Why? You know when you travel out of the country and go to that wonderful "tourist" spot?  The part of the city where its charming & quaint, full of history and beauty?  Sad to say, but they often are full of pick-pockets and criminals.  Why?  Because tourists are easy prey.  They come in "vacation" mode: not paying attention, drinking too much, ignoring clues around them, looking very "touristy".  If Americans only worked on not acting so, well, touristy in these areas, the crime might go down!

When criminals think of gay and bi men, they may think we are weak and easy prey.  Then they hear from here and there how easy it is to put up a Rentmen profile & advertise escort services.  Then when approached online by one of us, they demand a deposit.   We give in because their effort seems well meaning, they seem well spoken, and promises you he just needs "reassurance" with a deposit.  You send the deposit but he runs.  Another victim. 

And that criminal is bragging and laughing about his exploits to his shady friends.  ("OMG, that stupid idiot actually sent me $100 online....!!!!").  Birds of feather flock together- these are crooks. 

And the more the escorting community for gay men is full of guys who WILL pay a deposit, the escorting pool attracts more and more shady criminals who want to steal from and victimize us.  Sure, there are escorts who are genuine and provide their services with a deposit with no problem!  But word of mouth/advertising of deposits make our hiring community like a tourist hot spot in a beautiful country: a place for criminals to go to target easy prey.   Ruins everything. 

So don't think just because you paid a deposit and your particular escort is honest that that choice alone does not add to the problem.  It does.  It makes all of us who hire more at risk for others to victimize and harm us, just like acting like a tourist in touristy areas makes those areas less safe.  Escorts who take deposits and run inevitably provide (if they show up) bad service to us.   They are not going to do all the things you want them to do.  They will be horrible providers.  They only want our cash.  We dont want to encourage them to advertise escort services. 

Protect not only yourself (NO DEPOSITS!) but protect your brothers and this wonderful hiring community-  no deposits!!

You want a safer place for gay/bi men?  Help create a community that is not making itself a target.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world"  Mahatma Gandhi

Love to all

Josh

 

PS:  to all escorts- many of you are genuine, good at what you do, and oh-so-much-fun.  You would never harm any one of us.  And you dont demand deposits!  Dont ever change.  You are beautiful. 

 

This is quite an assertion.

You are suggesting that the pool of faithful providers who request deposits (an unknown proportion of all escorts) is harming clients on net by requesting deposits, as they allegedly incentivize bad providers (another proportion of all escorts which is hard to precisely quantify) to request deposits too and run away with the money.

This is like saying all the Italian pizza shops in a NYC should be shut down because some pizza shops are partially fronts for fentanyl-laced drug dealing operations.

Imagine you, a client , live in the upper west side of Manhattan and you want a provider from Brooklyn to come and see you, and you have never met them/they have never met you.

What reason would they have to trust that you wouldn’t cancel on them and lead them to make a wasted 50-minute trip to you  (costs a train fare) and then another wasted 50-minute trip to get back to Brooklyn (nearly 2 hours of time wasted along with transportation money)?

A world where deposits don’t exist is an unrealistic world, because if providers somehow could not ask for deposits, a lot of providers would not bother accepting booking requests. I suspect that some bottoms (who prepare considerably to have sex and may even change their diets for a booking) would simply not want to work if they couldn’t charge a deposit assuring their cleaning efforts, struggles, scheduling, transportation, and fees wouldn’t go to waste because of a flaky client.

It should also not be forgotten that providers themselves are targets of scammers, and deposits help weed those attackers out.

[+ PhileasFogg]

4 minutes ago, Venite said:

 

It should also not be forgotten that providers themselves are targets of scammers, and deposits help weed those attackers out.

And this should not be forgotten!

[Dicastri]

On 3/13/2026 at 10:14 AM, TBD said:

for me, without a name attached to it, the complaint means nothing.  I had an issue with a provider (non-deposit related) and when I posted here about it, the provider was suddenly very quick to want to resolve it. I would imagine you will have similar reaction, so I encourage you to do so. 

 

side note - I have followed this simple common sense rules -  SMALL deposit ($50 max and/or uber covered) to well reviewed provider both here and rentmen, and never to a provider who lists or indulges in PNP.  Any and all horror stories I hear on these forums people have deviated from these common sense rules. 

 

Yup. I think deposits of something like $50 are ok, especially when it’s done for a guy with at least 40 5-star reviews and good commentary on CoM. 
 

There is way too much anti-deposit hysteria going on, and you never hear about all the times that a deposit DOESN’T get stolen, because of human’s natural attention bias towards negative outcomes (occasions when a deposit DOES get stolen).

 

Its similar to how not every story of police good-doing (saving a life or rescuing someone) gets put out, but police-civilian deadly mishaps are much more likely to get coverage.

Edited 6 hours ago by Dicastri

[Mark_fl]

1 hour ago, Dicastri said:

There is way too much anti-deposit hysteria going on, and you never hear about all the times that a deposit DOESN’T get stolen, because of human’s natural attention bias towards negative 

This is silly.  Using this logic,  the most crime-ridden city in the world would be deemed safe since there are more incidents of people not getting mugged than getting mugged. 

That doesn't make anti-deposit sentiment "hysteria." It makes it common sense.

[Dicastri]

14 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

This is silly.  Using this logic,  the most crime-ridden city in the world would be deemed safe since there are more incidents of people not getting mugged than getting mugged. 

That doesn't make anti-deposit sentiment "hysteria." It makes it common sense.

You claim my comment is silly but you yourself actually make the silliest leap with your first paragraph here.
 

The statement I said simply means that it is impossible to see the full distribution of outcomes that happens with deposit transactions.  IE, obviously, no one has some database of what happens with all deposit transactions
 

 The times when a deposit is paid and faithfully honored are much less likely to be reported than the occasions when deposits are paid but stolen, leading to likely asymmetrical coverage of the latter.

Edited 4 hours ago by Dicastri

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

50 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

This is silly.  Using this logic,  the most crime-ridden city in the world would be deemed safe since there are more incidents of people not getting mugged than getting mugged. 

That doesn't make anti-deposit sentiment "hysteria." It makes it common sense.

And to quote the highly quotable @PhileasFogg:

And this should not be forgotten!

BTC
🤡

[Mark_fl]

50 minutes ago, Dicastri said:

The times when a deposit is paid and faithfully honored are much less likely to be reported than the occasions when deposits are paid but stolen, leading to likely asymmetrical coverage of the latter.

Yes, just like the city situation I described. You seemed to understand what I said yet completely missed the point.

[Dicastri]

11 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

Yes, just like the city situation I described. You seemed to understand what I said yet completely missed the point.

I take your city situation to mean that you are saying  this:  “even if there are more faithfully honored deposits than stolen deposits, the practice of paying a deposit is unsafe”.

The entire point of my first post on this thread is to say that NO ONE has information on the ratio of faithfully-honored-deposits to stolen deposits.  The share of successful deposit transactions could be huge in comparison to scammed deposit transactions. 

It is similar to suggesting that many heart surgeries should be banned, because of the possibility that some percentage of those surgeries could go wrong or have complications. 
 

Driving cars should be banned, because you might get into an accident or encounter a drunk driver who kills you. 
 

The profession of Policing should end, because some police end up killing unarmed civilians. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Dicastri

[+ KensingtonHomo]

54 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

This is silly.  Using this logic,  the most crime-ridden city in the world would be deemed safe since there are more incidents of people not getting mugged than getting mugged. 

That doesn't make anti-deposit sentiment "hysteria." It makes it common sense.

As someone who has lived my entire life in a city often considered the most "crime-ridden," people selectively pick muggings or assaults without context (e.g., 3 people were mugged in a city of 8.5 million people last year) to smear our city. Meanwhile, per capita, NYC is safer than nearly any city in the South. 

We've been hiring for around seven years. Have made probably 60-70 deposits and only two were "stolen" by which I mean we didn't meet. Both of the men who kept our money are clean-cut looking white guys who have good reviews on RM and here. So having a less than 1% chance of our deposit being stolen is extremely low risk. 

[Mark_fl]

4 minutes ago, KensingtonHomo said:

So having a less than 1% chance of our deposit being stolen is extremely low risk. 

I can think of a way to reduce that risk to 0.0%

[Dicastri]

16 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

I can think of a way to reduce that risk to 0.0%

Yes, we can imagine that your ideal world is one where no deposits are requested and no deposits are paid 🤣. A world where @KensingtonHomo would not have met with the sea of honest providers he alluded to meeting in his post, all so that he could avoid that 1% who didn't honor the deposit they were paid.

 

We could similarly reduce the risk of heart surgery complications (an AI overview suggests 15% frequency) to 0% frequency by banning heart surgeries entirely.

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Dicastri

[Mark_fl]

19 minutes ago, Dicastri said:

We could similarly reduce the risk of heart surgery complications (an AI overview suggests 15% frequency) to 0% frequency by banning heart surgeries entirely.

Hopefully you see the flaw in your own logic. If not, there is nothing I can say to enlighten you.

[Dicastri]

1 minute ago, Mark_fl said:

Hopefully you see the flaw in your own logic. If not, there is nothing I can say to enlighten you.

Please point it out- otherwise this seems like a facade of having any argumentative standing when you actually do not.

[Mark_fl]

11 minutes ago, Dicastri said:

Please point it out- otherwise this seems like a facade of having any argumentative standing when you actually do not.

Certainly,  although I'm not optimistic.  The risk of not having necessary heart surgery is generally death or worse.

The risk of not sending a deposit is that you can't lose your deposit. Or worst case scenario you have to find provider that trusts you as much as you trust him. 

Hardly apples to apples.

[Dicastri]

3 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

Certainly,  although I'm not optimistic.  The risk of not having necessary heart surgery is generally death or worse.

The risk of not sending a deposit is that you can't lose your deposit. Or worst case scenario you have to find provider that trusts you as much as you trust him. 

Hardly apples to apples.

Lol yes it’s a difference in intensity of negative outcomes from not agreeing to something. That is obvious, and the degree of difference between death and not seeing a hot guy because you declined his deposit is as plain as day.

 

I can tell you’re being disingenuous because you focused on the difference in intensity between the two scenarios I am analogizing, rather than the fact that in both scenarios, a service that entails risk is being declined.
 

As the heart patient could have benefitted from the surgery, the client could have benefitted from that fun time with a provider he was interested in. The intensity of the outcomes is not at all the point.

[Mark_fl]

2 minutes ago, Dicastri said:

Lol yes it’s a difference in intensity of negative outcomes from not agreeing to something. That is obvious, and the degree of difference between death and not seeing a hot guy because you declined his deposit is as plain as day.

 

I can tell you’re being disingenuous because you focused on the difference in intensity between the two scenarios I am analogizing, rather than the fact that in both scenarios, a service that entails risk is being declined.
 

As the heart patient could have benefitted from the surgery, the client could have benefitted from that fun time with a provider he was interested in. The intensity of the outcomes is not at all the point.

Apparently I was right not to be optimistic.  😉

[Dicastri]

4 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

Apparently I was right not to be optimistic.  😉

Your BEST bet was to not post at all- as all you can now do is feign intellectual and argumentative superiority with sentences like this, even when it is clear you had no argument.

[Mark_fl]

5 minutes ago, Dicastri said:

Your BEST bet was to not post at all- as all you can now do is feign intellectual and argumentative superiority with sentences like this, even when it is clear you had no argument.

I'm done with this conversation now. You can have the last word. Your failure to comprehend the argument does not mean it isn't there.

[Dicastri]

6 minutes ago, Mark_fl said:

I'm done with this conversation now. You can have the last word. Your failure to comprehend the argument does not mean it isn't there.

Yes, please leave the conversation. It’s best for you.
 

You dishonestly imply that the degree of difference in intensity between the outcomes in my analogy nullifies my main point:  that both a person who declines a heart surgery because of hearing about the risk of complications and a person who declines to pay a deposit because they have heard about people stealing deposits may miss out on something that would have benefited them somehow.

 

It is indeed best that you retire from this conversation.

Edited 2 hours ago by Dicastri

[Cretus]

Alright everyone, chill out 😂 

[Dicastri]

23 minutes ago, Cretus said:

Alright everyone, chill out 😂 

Ok. I just don’t like it when subtle jabs at my intelligence are being taken.

Edited 1 hour ago by Dicastri

[Austin Lewis]

On 3/13/2026 at 10:14 AM, TBD said:

for me, without a name attached to it, the complaint means nothing.  I had an issue with a provider (non-deposit related) and when I posted here about it, the provider was suddenly very quick to want to resolve it. I would imagine you will have similar reaction, so I encourage you to do so. 

I did finally name him in a thread that got merged with this one: 

I heard from him shortly thereafter with further false promises of a resolution. I also heard from another participant in this forum who had a very similar story. I feel quite certain that he and I are not the only two men whom he has treated this way.