Identifying Fraud Schemes That Prey On Sex Workers

As we wrap up the holiday season, it’s important to be aware of credit card theft and scammers that may try to make you unwitting accomplices in their schemes! Credit card theft is fueled by the holidays. As people start purchasing holiday gifts & traveling for the holidays, thieves decide to try to slip through their unauthorized transactions. They try hiding these fraudulent purchases amid all the legitimate gift & travel transactions. 

The adult industry especially needs to be educated about this kind of fraud. Credit card thieves are drawn to sex workers because of the large amounts of money sex workers can receive as tips, tributes, and purchases. This can make it easier to hide large transactions made from stolen cards. 

It’s important to understand that this money has been stolen usually from individuals, and will impact other human beings. This is not a “victimless” crime. In this sort of scheme, fraudsters steal credit card information from innocent people. They then use these stolen cards to charge as much as they can, extracting money from the card before the victim can notice. The victim absolutely does eventually notice and if they notice in time, they can usually report it to their bank and get the transactions refunded to them. But even when they are able to get that money reversed in time, it may have had other consequences such as jerking up their credit card score, causing overlimit or late fees on their cards, and a lot of stress/anxiety in the process.  

Can you imagine what it would be like to see purchases you didn’t make coming out of your bank account? How stressful and frightening it would be? 

It is also important to understand that if you are an accomplice, even unknowingly, in this kind of scheme there will be consequences. If you receive funds off of a stolen credit card, that money will almost always be eventually refunded out of your account and back to the victims of this theft. Additionally, you could face other consequences – from being banned from websites & payment apps to even being subject to legal consequences. 

Here are some common examples of how a card thief may approach you: 

Often, the thief will send you some tips to warm you up. Then, he will message you and say he’d like to speak to you privately – maybe moving to an app for messaging away from the site he was tipping you on.

There, he will tell you he has a proposition. He might say he knows a lot of “big tippers” who will come to your page or cam show and send you huge tips, but he’d like you to send to him 50% of everything they send you as a headhunter fee.

Or, maybe he will say that he has some gift cards he got as a bonus from work and needs the cash off of them. He says he will tip you many hundreds of dollars, and you send back a percentage of it to him and keep the rest as a thank you for helping him. 

In another, particularly malicious type of scheme he may send you a large tip like $200. Then he says he meant to send $20 actually and the extra 0 was entered by mistake. He needs that money back! He asks you to send back the $180 via payment app and then he will “call it good” after that. If you don’t comply he may threaten you with a chargeback or say he will get you in trouble legally.

In each of these cases, these are fabrications. The fraudster is using a stolen credit card to send you that money, and when the banks catch up to it they will pull a refund back on all of those funds – but the fraudster will have the money you sent them already. They leave you holding the bag.

There is another consequence to this kind of cyber crime, and that is that the more it happens, the more the card companies look at the adult industry with scrutiny. It increases the stigma within our industry, which is something none of us can afford.

Never agree to send someone money back after they have sent it to you. If you feel weird about a conversation, don’t hesitate to reach out for help. Follow your instincts and report this behavior. If anything like this happens to you on the platform I work for, JustFor.Fans, please reach out to our support staff immediately so my team can take immediate action against these individuals. If it happens on another site, contact the support staff on that site & any payment apps the scammers are using and let them know what happened. 

Stay safe, and happy holidays!

Author’s note: This article is cross posted  also on my JFF educational page, in the hopes that it will reach as many people as possible.