Verification calls
(and why I don't do them)
Some clients, particularly the nervous first-timers, are fairly insistent in scheduling some kind of verification call with me – either voice or face. I used to oblige, despite my severe dislike for phone calls. For those wondering, I have bad phone anxiety. Does avoiding it help my issue? Probably not, but I want to be as comfortable as possible in this business. For those that asked for a call, I would always let them know my discomfort and basically make them insist if I were to go through with it. The call would inevitably be awkward and not a lot of fun due to aforementioned anxiety.
I realized that i’m doing my clients and myself a disservice because the person they speak to on the phone is not representative of who they will meet in person. Furthermore, if a client is ready to ignore my discomfort at this stage, how can I trust he wont dismiss my discomforts down the line, when the stakes are higher? For these reasons I decided to no longer offer phone calls of any kind. One of the best parts of the job is the ability to say no to what I don’t want to do. Maybe I’ll lose one or two clients, but honestly, I don’t think it’ll make a huge difference in the end.
If you want to vet me, I implore you to check out my socials and the rest of my website. I also have reviews up on TER as well as multiple advertisements on the major sites. You really have to use common sense here. What kind of scam would someone be pulling after going through all this effort – and remember, the fact that my social and site have remained up, means that no one has reported me for anything. Point is, it would be very simple to find out about anything nefarious I may have done. As a matter of fact I have one bad review on TER – go check it out (I plan to address it in another post). If you’re concerned about catfishing, the reviews confirm that I look like or better than my photos.
Finally, this business is not for the faint of heart. If you are planning to participate, be it client or provider, you have to prepare to absorb a certain amount of risk. Clients will get scammed out of deposits and providers will get chargebacks, etc. We hopefully learn from these and try to safeguard in the future, but its not possible to protect yourself 100%. My advice is to not book a session or pay a deposit that costs more than what you would be comfortable losing (its the old gifting friends money rule). This is a luxury service after all – please don’t be spending your last few hundred to see a provider.
As always – do what you want with this information – it is but my opinion only.
