Men4RentNow's current operating procedures

[AaronScottDC]

While I know that this topic has been discussed on here before (in the Deli, I think), I just wanted to make sure everyone knew what was currently happening with this site.

 

As of 12 AM last night, Men4Rent is now charging escorts to advertise on their site. Which is all well and good. However, what they have failed to mention to anyone, potential clients or escorts, is that the ads for the escorts who do not wish to pay the advertising fee will remain "active" on the site. That is, their pics will stay up with the same info as before. So, there isn't any difference on the site between an escort who has paid for the advertising and one who hasn't...... At least that is the way it APPEARS.

 

Unfortunately, it even appears to be the same when a client clicks on the "email him" button on the site to try to contact the escort. Whether the escort being contacted has paid his fee or not, a message will appear on the screen saying "Your email to xxxxx has been successfully sent." But, of course, since the escort is not paying for the ad, it really has NOT been sent. So, there is no way for clients to actually tell whether they are sending an email message to a real, active email address, or whether their message will never reach their selected hottie escort.

 

How do I know this? Because I just tested it myself. Here is an example of what shows up in the non-paying escort's mailbox when a potential client tries to send him an email message:

 

 

 

"You have received a response to your advertisement on

Men4RentNow.com. Unfortunately, because your membership has expired

you will have to upgrade your membership before we can provide you

with the details of the ad response.

 

You currently have a total of 1 ad responses

waiting for you since your account expired on 11/15/2003.

If you upgrade your membership now, you will receive a detailed

report listing all the ad responses we have collected for you since

your ad expired on 11/15/2003.

 

To receive your detailed list of ad responses - get down to business

fast! Renew your membership by logging into your Men4RentNow.com

account and making a payment at the following URL:

 

http://www.men4rentnow.com/account/payment.asp

 

Memberships start from as low as $29.95 per month!"

 

 

 

 

I just thought some people on here might want to know this info.

 

 

Aaron Scott DC

http://www.erados.com/AaronScottDC

http://www.male4malescorts.com/reviews/aaronscottdc.html

[theDCeBOY]

CLIENTS: create an uproar. if enough people demand that they at least be honest about the contact with the escort--or, if enough non-paying escorts revoke the licence to use their photos--maybe something will happen.

 

i've got a week before my free period ends. i don't think i'm going to pay until/unless there is some resolution to this. why should i pay if clients decide to avoid the site because of their deceptive practices & because they can't be sure if someone they contact will get the message?

[Guest YFSC]

>I just thought some people on here might want to know this info.

 

Thanks for this info Aaron.

I have no complaint about a site charging for advertising. hat's their business decision. But the situation that you describe and documented is deceptive and reprehensible.

[Guest Tampa Yankee]

On the horns of a dilemma... who blinks first?

 

The email strategy is a transparent 'carrot' to get nonparticipating escorts to ante up. They loose potential business that the site is all too happy to quantify for them with email contacts held hostage. The fallout is two fold: nearer term, the escort gets a bad rep for not answering emails, and eventually the site gets a bad rep for having a high percentage of what is referred to in the software industry as 'dead code' -- instructions that are present but can never be executed. Clients will discover this eventually when they find working contact info for the escort on another site. It will take time and the hit or miss nature of the email contact strategy will add to that time. It will also keep clients coming back hoping to hit and building frustration when they miss. Who blinks first? I think the site is not going to readily abandon its business plan anytime soon.

[Guest YFSC]

> or, if enough non-paying escorts revoke the

>licence to use their photos--maybe something will happen.

 

Revoke the license?? A fat lot of good that will do!

The stories are legion of escorts repeatedly asking, insisting, demanding, begging, pleading and cajoling to get their ads off various sites, or to get them corrected or updated, often when they never placed the ad or licensed the pics in the first place but the ad just "appeared" on the site, and nothing happens. These sites *want* lots of ads for hot guys in order to attract visitors, and they use all sorts of means, both ethical and unethical to get or put them there and to keep them there.

[Guest YFSC]

RE: On the horns of a dilemma... who blinks first?

 

Right, TY. Well said.

[Guest YFSC]

>i've got a week before my free period

 

Only a week until your period??

Look out, everybody. It's going to be hell around here when it comes in. :7

[AaronScottDC]

RE: On the horns of a dilemma... who blinks first?

 

I, too, totally agree with you, TY. I know it is a marketing strategy by the company. I just want to inform as many people as I can about it since they don't seem to want to.

 

 

Aaron Scott DC

http://www.erados.com/AaronScottDC

http://www.male4malescorts.com/reviews/aaronscottdc.html

[Nvr2Thick]

I agree that this practice is pretty fucking stupid. The worst thing about sites such as MeetLocalMen is all the dead ads. Maintaining dead ads in the hope that escorts will reactivate them is counter-productive.

 

Any escort who receives one of these messages should immediately request that their information and pictures be removed from the Men4RentNow site. You should follow up to make sure that your ad is removed. If escorts reduce Men4RentNow's content maybe they'll have to rethink their strategy.

[Guest Tampa Yankee]

>You should follow up to

>make sure that your ad is removed.

 

And how do you propose that this be accomplished?

[Rick Munroe]

>>You should follow up to

>>make sure that your ad is removed.

>

>And how do you propose that this be accomplished?

 

I don't have time to check into it right now but I believe men4rentnow is one of those sites where we enter a password and make whatever changes we need to make; I assume deleting the ad is one of those choices. And after reading this thread, I think I'll choose to do just that when I return.

[Guest random]

>>You should follow up to

>>make sure that your ad is removed.

>

>And how do you propose that this be accomplished?

>

Any escort can remove their ad, it is simple to delete it. I was with a friend who didn't want to pay them, he went into his free account selected delete and that was it. He is no longer on the site.

 

The problem is that the ads who I believe are mostly affected will be those that are dead anyway. The guys have moved on without deleting their ad.

 

Maybe M4RN can delete ads where there has been no sign in activity (by the escort) in the last 30 - 45 days and start to clean up their database.

[Guest ncm2169]

< Maybe M4RN can delete ads where there has been no sign in activity (by the escort) in the last 30 - 45 days and start to clean up their database. >

 

Seems to me that's not in their interest (as opposed to our interest as clients). They clearly made a LOT of effort to identify guys to get listed on their site -- more guys, I think, than any other site. M4RN is better off continuing to "mine" that list of guys, hoping to cajole them into paying to be listed. Deleting ads deprives them of their leverage.

 

Like others, I'll be very interested to see how it all plays out.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Delete or Suspending An Escort Listing

 

Escorts can delete or suspend their ads. However, I believe (although I am not 100% certain) the site implies that members paying for premium service can temporarily suspend an escort ad, but even the escorts paying for basic services cannot do so.

 

I assume an escort who has allowed his free period to expire would be able to delete his ad after the period has lapsed, but I do not know. I decided to suspend my listing (and it no longer appears) the day before my "free trial period" expired.

 

Someone such as Mr. Munroe who may have waited for the "trial period" to expire will need to report back and let this site know if they can still log in and delete the ad at that point.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

How To Tell Which Escort Ads Are Bad

 

An easy way for clients to tell when escort ads are bad (although I will be honest and admit this is not 100 percent fool proof) is to see if contact telephone numbers are provided.

 

I did a simple tests: Escorts in Tucson, Arizona brought up 11 listings, but only one (the top most escort listed) actually had a telephone number; I also looked for escorts in Denver, Colorado, that was a little better, 46 listings, ten (once again the first ten listings) with telephone numbers; St. Louis, Missouri, ten listings, one the top most one had contact telephone information, and finally, Columbus, Ohio with 26 listings and zero telephone numbers.

 

I picked those cities because they are fairly large, I know escorts in all those cities who are still working and are on the site, so I know their particular listings are not bad listings, and also because one positive comment that clients have consisently made about this site is that it was good for searching for escorts in small and mid-size cities that are not on either the east or west coast.

 

Clients can basically rely on two tests:

 

Which listings came up first in a search area AND whether or not their is a telephone contact number listed or not. You can be nearly certain that no telephone number means the listing is not 'active' (although I will acknowledge a very small number of guys - usually the non-professional ones who are doing this for a lark - simply want to be contacted via e-mail and have no pagers or cell phones).