Am I a Terrible Person?

[corndog]

So, I came across this ad on masseurfinder.com: http://www.masseurfinder.com/members/massage1011.shtml

 

The description was enticing and the photos seemed really hot, but it was hard to believe that the photos were all of the same guy. I texted him (from a disposable number) expressing my concern about the photos. He instantly responded with his rates, and asked when I'd like to see him, and where I was located. He seemed very, very eager to close the deal, but didn't respond to my question about the photos.

 

His text messages all ended with "-Sent free from TextNow.com," which leads me to believe that he was using a disposable phone number, too. I could hardly blame him for that, since I was basically doing the same thing, using Google Voice. As I was searching online, trying to find the origin of his photos, my phone started ringing (4 consecutive calls) with calls from a different number. I texted him again, saying that I wasn't in a place where I could talk by phone, but I was still concerned about his photos.

 

He responded by asking me when I wanted to see him, and where I was located. I didn't want to seem too singleminded about the photo question, so I told him 8pm, and then I looked up in his ad where was located. The intersection shown in the ad was within a cluster of hotels, so I picked one of those hotels and told him I was staying there.

 

While all this was going on, I remembered reading a thread here "Too good to be true?" that connected me to his rentboy ad, using the same suspect photos.

 

"OK, Great" he said, "I'll see you at 8pm." He was using an assumptive close and then asked for my room number. I made up a room number that I was fairly sure, but not certain, wouldn't exist at the hotel, and asked him if he could send me a quick selfie with his finger touching his ear, just so I would feel assured that his photos were real.

 

He responded to that by saying that he didn't have a working camera right now. Using iMessage, I was able to verify that the number he called me from was an iPhone. iPhones have TWO cameras: one front-facing and one rear-facing, so I find it highly improbable that both cameras were broken -- he had taken his lie just about as far as it would go. I reiterated my concern about his photos, but was careful to neither explicitly accept his assumptive close, nor clearly refuse to see him.

 

An hour or so passed, and it was about 8:20pm, and I hadn't heard from him again. I felt a twinge of evil as I texted him "I thought you were going to be here at 8pm?"

 

He responded with "You seemed like you didn't want me to come lol" and I said "How soon could you get here." He said "9pm" and I said "OK."

 

At 8:50pm, he texted "On my way" and then at 9:06pm, "almost there." 20 minutes seemed like a lot of travel time, considering his ad stated that his location was at the same intersection. At 9:20, he texted saying "Last name on room? You gave me the wrong room number." And then, a minute later, "I'm leaving."

 

"Ok. It was a fun game. Thanks for playing." I responded.

 

So, returning to the original question of this thread, was it ethical to intentionally waste this scammers time, send him on a bit of a wild goose chase, and then taunt him a little? Is this how we stop these guys from posting fake ads and taking advantage of our under-informed brethren?

[+ purplekow]

You asked if it was ethical. My answer to that is no, it was not ethical. An ethical thing to do would have been to inform him that you would not hire him without verification that it was he in the pictures and if he could not do so, you would not see him. It would also have been ethical to tell him that his excuses for not sending a picture seemed flimsy and that he was wasting your time. Yours was not a retaliatory response. You went out of your way to try and convict this person and then inflicted punishment. That is not ethical.

If you are asking whether or not people agree with your action, or commend your action, that is a different question, which went unasked so I will let it go unanswered.

[YoungAD]

Your post left me wondering if you were 100% sure he was actually a scammer. Are you 100% sure?

[jimboivyo]

no you're not terrible, but what a waste of time. scamming the scammer serves no purpose. just let it all go

 

if this person screws enough folks, he'll eventually get whats coming to him without having to tarnish your own karma

[+ azdr0710]

to very obvious scammers/crooks/assholes, I've always wanted to do something like what corndog describes.....even to the point of telling them to meet me at some hotel lobby at a confirmed time and me going there and just sitting there and watching the confusion....ha: even texting with them while they wander the lobby trying to figure this out - "I'm right over here!", "NO, the guy in the navy polo shirt sitting at the bar" (nobody in sight matching that description)....

 

instead, the most I'll do is simple texting that your pictures are fake, you are a scam, you have already been found out, or what a racket.....we need to fight the obvious racketeers and simple direct reporting to them might be the most professional way to do it

[corndog]

Your post left me wondering if you were 100% sure he was actually a scammer. Are you 100% sure?

 

I'd say that I'm 99.97% sure. It's very difficult to ever say 100%. The pictures look like different people to me, and most of them are all over the internet. It seems like the eye color is different in each picture, as well as the shape of the eyebrows, etc. When I questioned him about the pictures, he never denied they were fake, he would always just change the subject. Add to that several red flags: a sketchy disposable phone number, an over-eagerness to book without ever asking me what I was looking for, and his implausible inability to make a quick selfie.

 

...but what a waste of time. scamming the scammer serves no purpose.

Maybe I'm twisted, but I found some entertainment value in the whole exchange when I was stuck in for the evening anyway. And, as far as a purpose goes, I would hope that a big waste of time like this might lead the guy to give up his scam.

[Guest]

You may have been shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch too much if you think two wrongs make a right...

http://freshpatrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/abercrombie.jpg

 

To answer your question "Was it ethical?", the answer to that is no, although not very high in the unethical scale. To answer your question "Am I a terrible person?" requires more information than you provided in your posting. What you did was a bit evil, although one could argue that the man had it coming. You might have finished the encounter by texting "The scammer got scammed. Payback's a bitch"... I can't say I haven't thought of doing similar things. Not worth my time for these losers, though. Although I like to think that they'll all get what's coming to them, some of them manage to go on for years. There was that one former fitness model who managed to abscond victims' money for years: he "escorted" under the name Scott Sloan, but modeled under the name Rick Villasenor. Remember, it takes four Wongs to make a Wright....

 

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Wright+and+wong_037aff_5058476.png

[+ Travis69]

I would say giving him a innocent person's room number was wrong. What if he had pushed the door open and demanded money or worse assuming it was you.

[corndog]

I would say giving him a innocent person's room number was wrong.

I agree completely. I'm pretty sure that I didn't do that. It's a smallish hotel, and I gave room number 482. In most of this type of hotel (Courtyard), this room would be on the fourth floor, and numbers would start at 401 and go up to the number of rooms on the floor. This is a small property, and probably has about 20 rooms per floor, so anything in the range of 421-499 would be invalid. (Then, there's the question of whether someone should open a hotel room door for an unexpected stranger, but let's not get into that.)

[Diverdan]

I have no way of judging if you are a terrible person, but I have to agree that what you did was unethical. If you were suspicious as to his legitimacy, then you should have cut it off right then. Why waste your time on something that you know is not going to work out. Two wrongs don't make a right, and since you know how it feels like to be scammed, why bother trying to scam in return. JUST MHO...

[Rudynate]

So, I came across this ad on masseurfinder.com: http://www.masseurfinder.com/members/massage1011.shtml

 

The description was enticing and the photos seemed really hot, but it was hard to believe that the photos were all of the same guy. I texted him (from a disposable number) expressing my concern about the photos. He instantly responded with his rates, and asked when I'd like to see him, and where I was located. He seemed very, very eager to close the deal, but didn't respond to my question about the photos.

 

His text messages all ended with "-Sent free from TextNow.com," which leads me to believe that he was using a disposable phone number, too. I could hardly blame him for that, since I was basically doing the same thing, using Google Voice. As I was searching online, trying to find the origin of his photos, my phone started ringing (4 consecutive calls) with calls from a different number. I texted him again, saying that I wasn't in a place where I could talk by phone, but I was still concerned about his photos.

 

He responded by asking me when I wanted to see him, and where I was located. I didn't want to seem too singleminded about the photo question, so I told him 8pm, and then I looked up in his ad where was located. The intersection shown in the ad was within a cluster of hotels, so I picked one of those hotels and told him I was staying there.

 

While all this was going on, I remembered reading a thread here "Too good to be true?" that connected me to his rentboy ad, using the same suspect photos.

 

"OK, Great" he said, "I'll see you at 8pm." He was using an assumptive close and then asked for my room number. I made up a room number that I was fairly sure, but not certain, wouldn't exist at the hotel, and asked him if he could send me a quick selfie with his finger touching his ear, just so I would feel assured that his photos were real.

 

He responded to that by saying that he didn't have a working camera right now. Using iMessage, I was able to verify that the number he called me from was an iPhone. iPhones have TWO cameras: one front-facing and one rear-facing, so I find it highly improbable that both cameras were broken -- he had taken his lie just about as far as it would go. I reiterated my concern about his photos, but was careful to neither explicitly accept his assumptive close, nor clearly refuse to see him.

 

An hour or so passed, and it was about 8:20pm, and I hadn't heard from him again. I felt a twinge of evil as I texted him "I thought you were going to be here at 8pm?"

 

He responded with "You seemed like you didn't want me to come lol" and I said "How soon could you get here." He said "9pm" and I said "OK."

 

At 8:50pm, he texted "On my way" and then at 9:06pm, "almost there." 20 minutes seemed like a lot of travel time, considering his ad stated that his location was at the same intersection. At 9:20, he texted saying "Last name on room? You gave me the wrong room number." And then, a minute later, "I'm leaving."

 

"Ok. It was a fun game. Thanks for playing." I responded.

 

So, returning to the original question of this thread, was it ethical to intentionally waste this scammers time, send him on a bit of a wild goose chase, and then taunt him a little? Is this how we stop these guys from posting fake ads and taking advantage of our under-informed brethren?

 

 

Seems like a huge amount of wasted time and energy and you showed yourself to be no better than him.

[bigvalboy]

All very interesting...these were not the responses I was expecting. I hope everyone remembers this the next time they get scammed by some unscrupulous individual.

[YoungAD]

Corn dog I'm not in the place to judge you but I think you're uncomfortable with what you did, otherwise you wouldn't have posted anything. Agree with the others that it's a waste of time to exact revenge and in this case you don't really know if the guy is a scam artist or not. If the guy you contact doesn't answer direct queries or seems sketchy, drop him and move on.

[corndog]

All very interesting...these were not the responses I was expecting. I hope everyone remembers this the next time they get scammed by some unscrupulous individual.

 

I have to admit that I was expecting more varied reactions, both for and against my actions. And, to be clear, when I asked the question "Am I a Terrible Person," I was being facetious. I'm confident that I'm not a terrible person, and I'm comfortable with my actions. I can certainly understand the point of view that I took the low road, and stooped down to the scammer's level.

 

I appreciate BVB's second point. I think that we're all susceptible to escort and masseur scammers; it's a liability of the quasi-legality of this field of interest. There is very limited recourse that we have available, and this forum is one of our best resources to learn how to identify and protect ourselves from trouble. My hope is that we can eventually make these scams more trouble than they're worth. And, it's possible that while I was wasting this guy's time, he was unavailable to scam some less-informed client who would have fallen for his shenanigans.

 

As for those who feel that I was wasting my time, thank you for your concern. However, the whole thing felt like a game, and was pretty entertaining. I'd feel terrible about wasting someone's time like this if they were honest and innocent, but this guy was almost definitely scum-of-the-earth. In the past, I've contacted people with apparently fake photos and given them the benefit of the doubt, and I've been perfectly willing to just drop it if there is any doubt, but this guy was selling his scam hard and fast, and left me no plausible way to believe that he could be legit.

[+ Charlie]

It seems pretty obvious that you decided early in the exchanges that you were not going to hire this guy, and instead you engaged in a game to see if you could scam him, as you believed he intended to do to you. That may be fun, but it is not ethical. If he had successfully scammed you, there might be some justification for trying to take revenge by doing the same thing to him, but I question whether even that would be considered ethical. I don't find your claim that this might cause the guy to cease scamming very convincing as a rationale for what you did--if anything, it might make his behavior more cynical towards potential clients. I don't think what you did makes you a "bad person," but it doesn't make you a hero either.

[MiamiLooker]

The scammer gets scammed. Nothing wrong with that.

[liubit]

Are you a terrible persson, corndog? Definitely NOT NOT NOT. Was what you did ethical? I don't know, but I certainly do not care at all because it is not for me to judge. It was a good way of getting back at the scammer. I find you guys a bit too moralistic (if that is a word), and sometimes much, way too much politically correct. Lighten up, people! Life is too short. Kudos, corndog!

[Juan Vancouver]

He does sound like a pushy, disorganized escort. It is even possible that he is using someone else's pictures, even though you yourself admit that you are not one hundred percent sure of that. I am not here to defend him, I don't know who he is, know nothing about him. I have to say, however, that reading your post and your subsequent responses I have not been able to stop blushing in shame and discomfort.

 

I have to admit that I was expecting more varied reactions, both for and against my actions. And, to be clear, when I asked the question "Am I a Terrible Person," I was being facetious. I'm confident that I'm not a terrible person, and I'm comfortable with my actions. I can certainly understand the point of view that I took the low road, and stooped down to the scammer's level.

 

Good to read that your question about your moral character was facetiousness because even after reading your posts it would be impossible to issue a judgment about it.

 

However, it worries me to read that you actually feel comfortable with your actions, and furthermore:

 

However, the whole thing felt like a game, and was pretty entertaining. I'd feel terrible about wasting someone's time like this if they were honest and innocent, but this guy was almost definitely scum-of-the-earth.

 

An inability for understanding how your actions hurt others, the certainty that one is above all rules and one can decide when to break them because one is better, a dehumanizing of one's victims, more often than not by the justification that it (the victim) is stupid, lesser, evil, ugly... you name it, the absolute disinterest or inability to listen to other's opinions about your actions, a distinct pride about having "pulled that off" and having had a riot, and the certainty that one's actions are right and justified, are all a perfect match for a very specific profile.

 

By your own admission you say that there is absolutely no way to be 100 percent sure he was a scammer. You decided it and decided to -disregarding this person's humanity- have fun with his life, his time, his livelihood, possibly endangering innocent third party individuals regardless of how you convince yourself that others were out of harm's way.

 

And then you come here... and brag.

 

 

 

 

It is evident that you seem to forget that all scammers, all criminals, all serial killers, all embezzlers (list could keep going on) have committed their crimes following exactly this mental loophole.

 

All scammers, both escorts and clients enjoy playing with their victim's lives and getting away with it. From where I stand you don't look any different to the guys who book, confirm, give an address or room number and never show up. From where I am standing, if it barks, it's a dog.

 

I imagine reading this (if you have gotten this far) I must be nothing to you but an uppity, opinionated hooker, but I sincerely hope our paths never cross. I love my work and I find so much fulfillment and excitement in it. Sadly, the only fly in the ointment, what sometimes makes me hate my work is people who -for whatever justification in their minds- think it is okay to play with me and my livelihood.

 

There are games that are way more entertaining than fucking with people's lives.

[YoungAD]

I must admit that it did not occur to me that someone at the hotel might find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation because of this setup.

[AdamSmith]

An eye for an eye is a primitive ethical code.

[jawjateck]

We lack an objective moral compass, so the needle swings wildly. In this community, moral assessments are arbitrary, based on the prevailing wind direction (e.g. hot air expulsion) and others float along in the breeze. Consensus will often morph into a contrarian position from what you might predict.

[Guest]

He does sound like a pushy, disorganized escort.

By your own admission you say that there is absolutely no way to be 100 percent sure he was a scammer. You decided it and decided to -disregarding this person's humanity- have fun with his life, his time, his livelihood, possibly endangering innocent third party individuals regardless of how you convince yourself that others were out of harm's way.

All scammers, both escorts and clients enjoy playing with their victim's lives and getting away with it. From where I stand you don't look any different to the guys who book, confirm, give an address or room number and never show up. From where I am standing, if it barks, it's a dog.

 

Really, now. The dude was not a "pushy, disorganized escort"; I think we can feel confident that he was a scammer who got scammed back. While I agree that what Corndog didn't exemplify the most ethical behavior, I certainly cannot see equating this to booking, confirming, then not showing up to an appointment with a real escort (in which there is an innocent victim). He was merely giving the scammer a dose of his own medicine, although I agree with Charlie that it could just embolden the scammer. Some have brought up the idea that Corndog may have endangered an innocent hotel guest, but Corndog made it clear that he gave out a non-existent room number, so that's clearly not the case. Just because an action is unethical doesn't mean that all unethical actions are equally unethical. Stealing something from a thief is not as unethical as raping an innocent woman. I find Corndog's actions somewhat unethical, but not terribly bothersome. I suppose if it barks, it's probably a dog (although other animals, even seals, bark), but there's a world of difference between a chihuahua and a pit bull or presa canario.

[Decatur Guy]

Corndog, I'm going to file this one under: AND WHO AM I TO JUDGE?

 

This crowd can get very judgmental and testy with a confessional post. That's happened to me. I was pretty well ripped a new asshole on here once -- and not in a good way.

 

So I will watch the pile-on from afar. No bouquets nor brickbats from me.

[m.yi]

He was obviously a scammer, I even recognize one of the guys. I wouldn't go out of my way though, it would just be a waste of MY OWN time. Let him waste his money on the fake ad, anyone could spot he is a fake. First look at it, I knew hardly anyone would bother texting him.

 

Not worth the time and effort. I was hoping RB would have a verification system link to this forum, just like with the reviews. Something like a list of Forum members who could attest an ad/escort is real. The member I guess has to have a minimum number of posts/and time spent in the forum. But then again, numerous reviews of an escort has been enough for me whether to hire or not.

[corndog]

I imagine reading this (if you have gotten this far) I must be nothing to you but an uppity, opinionated hooker, but I sincerely hope our paths never cross. I love my work and I find so much fulfillment and excitement in it. Sadly, the only fly in the ointment, what sometimes makes me hate my work is people who -for whatever justification in their minds- think it is okay to play with me and my livelihood.

 

Actually, Juan, I regard your opinion very highly. For a long time, I've appreciated the posts you make here, and it hurts me a little when you say "I sincerely hope our paths never cross."

 

I would be devastated if I learned that I played with the livelihood of a legitimate professional such as yourself, but I'm 99.97% certain that this guy is the one who started playing games, and I played his game, and ultimately won.

 

Your profession is unfortunately tarnished by people who call themselves "escorts" but in fact are nothing but hustlers. These people do harm to every legitimate escort by creating an initial attitude of mistrust. But, what recourse do we have against the scammers? We can't report them to law enforcement. It does no good to report the fake profiles to rentboy, massagem4m or masseurfinder... they don't care. We can't even review them on daddysreviews.com unless we proceed to actually have an appointment with the scammers. Posting info here in this forum is something, but this community represents a tiny percentage of the hiring public. So, I suppose I'm expected to simply shrug it off, discontinue communication, and let the guy move on to his next victim?

 

I agree with your point that it's very dangerous to play judge, jury and executioner. If I was ever less than 100% (ok, I'll concede, 99.97%) certain that he was a scammer, I would have dropped it. However, when faced with an clear injustice, isn't it also morally questionable to simply look the other way and say "it's not my problem?"