Who Do You Love?: Sugar Scams, Part 4

My ongoing investigation into Twitter's sugar daddies, sugar babies, and the slightly overlapping financial domination fetish market continues!

This week, I'm talking about what I've learned from messaging some of the so-called sugar daddy accounts.

Disclaimer:

This post will cover adult themes and concepts. I will try to be discreet and tasteful, but after this point, expect allusions to sexuality and romance. Reader discretion is advised.

Now, a quick recap 

I decided to see whether any of the sugar daddies on Twitter are even slightly real. Obviously, this isn't a fully scientifically rigorous test, but a handful of samples is certainly worth more than internet hearsay alone. I've created an alternate Twitter account and even an alternate Paypal and email address to avoid disclosing my own financial information (and also keep my professional life separate from this investigation). Everything I've been doing and talking about has been with my partner Disarcade's consent, permission, and awareness - and much to his amusement. So, with that note out of the way, let's get into the internet's dirt!

Why are you doing this? 

Well, as I mentioned before, many people joke about sugar daddies and "glucose guardian" arrangements. At the same time, few people understand how such arrangements are supposed to work. And while they may seem silly on a good day, what we tell ourselves when we have a job and are scraping our way to making ends meet isn't what we tell ourselves at the end of the month when rent is overdue.

Sometimes, we hear the call of the void. And sometimes the way to deal with that call is to throw on a weight-tested nylon harness, clip into some carabiners, tie a securing knot to a rope, and jump over the edge. I wanted to know what would happen, and whether there was even the slightest chance of one of these fellows being the real deal, rather than some fraudulent huckster trolling Twitter for thirsty, curious girls.

Although I fully support sex work and sex workers (which is not the same as trafficking; that's several other blog posts' worth of discussion), I do think it's important to know what you're getting into - and to remember that people on the internet can't necessarily be trusted.

The tension of distrust

Something we don't talk about when discussing internet fraud is how difficult it is to actually distrust someone. My personal experience of distrust is that it forms a sort of tension in my chest, as though I were holding something in, or bracing for a punch.

So yeah, it's hard to distrust people, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that sensation. I'll probably do a follow-up post with my research about why it's hard to distrust people, but let's keep talking about this one one fraudster for the moment.

One of the interesting things about posing as a sugar baby was that men would be overtly affectionate with much more freedom than, say, they might normally express. Having a pretty good background in the techniques of cult indoctrination and abusive relationships, as well as the recruitment strategies of multi-level marketing companies - I have a deep love of podcasts and dark stories - I couldn't help but wonder if the almost hyperbolic protestations of affection were a form of love-bombing. In a way, it only makes sense, because if you're going to scam someone out of money, you want them to trust you as much as possible first.

Even though I knew I was talking to scammers, it was sometimes difficult not to take their affection at face value - and some of them are very, very good at being sincere, or at least appearing that way. Even haphazard English can't disguise protestations of affection, or completely keep them from landing on their target.

The worst part, perhaps, is knowing that these scammers are doing their utmost to groom you into trusting them - and that they don't actually care or mean anything they say. Th emotional manipulation is easily the most dangerous part of the con, because it sets up such a bad precedent for people in the rest of their lives.

We may all believe we know the internet is full of untrustworthy people - but at the end of the day, we can only sustain the tension of mistrusting someone for so long. And even with strangers, it's difficult not to feel the gravity of emotional obligation pulling one in. But like gravity, we have to resist it. And that brings me to something much funnier.

I ain't freaking...

The gentleman I'm about to reference claimed to be a building supervisor who managed multiple buildings for various industries; he said he was based in Maryland, single with no children, and had three sisters. Of course, he was also quick to protest his deep and abiding love for me, praise my beauty (in a very unexceptional photo, I might add) and say that he wanted to take me on trips, to not talk to any other men on the internet, and that I was the woman for him. (All from a few lines of rather pedestrian Twiter conversation in private DMs, and without any sexual conversation whatsoever...YIKES.)

Hilariously, one of the men who contacted me - asking for my bank card number and password, of course - did reply to my turnabout-is-fair-play request by sending his own login info and a name, but provided a link to a website that immediately set off my fraud detector.

Not the one built into my browser - just the "hmm, this looks like a fake website" one in my own brain. I'm in Canada, so I don't use Bank of America, but I know what a real login website looks like...and this ain't it.

This is what all my bank login pages look like. Yep. 

This is definitely the same, right? 

I decided to try logging in through a different link, not one he'd sent - the real Bank of America online site.

For comparison's sake, this is the real Bank of America landing page. Keep that in mind.

And finally, the prestige - once I logged in with his credentials...

2. Username:- SamanthaConnor Password :- Caromydaughter

    

the fake site, http://boapa.byethost15.com/ , featured his login name misspelled, a strange landing page with a summary, and none of the buttons on the landing page actually worked. There were other typos on the page, but that was the biggest tip-off.

Oh yes. Drink it in. Just look at that bad, bad fakery.

I ain't fakin' this 

Mind you, there were other inconsistencies. In addition to the fact that he claimed to be from Maryland, his profile said he was in Ohio; he "will like to get to know me better," of course, and said he had traveled to many places. He was able to name several cities in Nigeria, and claimed to be "a building contractor", "supervising buildings," with work in "agriculture and oil and gas," - but didn't know what the agricultural products of Nigeria were.

This might sound like an overly specific question - but really, everyone I've ever met has been able to tell me what their country produces a lot of and what its industries are. I have friends all over the world, and I love detailed conversations about both emotional things and the minutiae of life - but real people have no trouble coming up with detailed and cohesive explanations about things. That may sound ridiculous, but it's incredibly easy to test, and I would encourage anyone reading this to do so. (Plus, it gives you an excuse to socialise with a friend, and that's good for everyone's health!)

And finally, if anyone feels like actually gracing my account with a tip after reading this series, here is my real Paypal.me.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

You're Not My Real Daddy: Sugar Scams, Part 3

So, I've gone over the basics and the legitimate part of the overlapping sugar daddy and financial domination communities - but what about the scams? Well, here's where the oldest internet rules come into play.

(Forgive me, I couldn't resist.)

So, the adage that you should never give out your banking info is a bit complex in the context of financial relationships - but don't give out your password or login info under any circumstances. In addition, though, scammers preying on the aspiring sugar baby community - comprised of everyone from those tweeting "I need a sugar daddy" to carefully dressed, angled, and groomed ingenues - are very creative and bizarre.

My own experience with this included a fellow ostensibly looking for someone to give money to in exchange for chats and any sort of relationship - no sexuality required. So, having run it by my partner, and getting his consent and curiosity, I set about conversing with him, as well as messaging a few other alleged sugar daddy accounts.

A kind follower immediately told me that the accounts with a name and a string of random numbers are mostly scammers. Chagrined, but now even more curious, I set about researching the matter. Sure enough, a few journalists had reported back - but apart from a Vice video, there was a dearth of info about the community.

And yet many of my friends had occasionally joked about or alluded to wanting a sugar daddy or something of that nature. In a financially strenuous era, while we vote for reforms and support candidates who promise to strengthen social service and welfare nets, or even expand them, we still have to get by.

And if you're young, attractive, and visibly able, it's hard not to listen to the siren song of apparent easy money. After all, women are often coaxed into offering emotional labour up in normal relationships - why not get paid for cooing and caring for people? Sex is optional, and far from mandatory. In such cash-starved times, anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit or curiosity might well be emboldened to give the sugary lifestyle a try.

That's where my assistant, whom I'll call Birdie, comes in. Seeing my post on Facebook about the strange and intriguing world of "glucose guardians," Birdie was curious, and volunteered to contact some of the randomly chosen profiles I unearthed. She immediately ran face-first into their intricate scams - but luckily, she was smart, and didn't offer anything up, while stringing along the flirtatious fraudsters.

The daddies you can't trust 

The problem is that from a scammer's perspective, possible access to someone's bank account and the bonus of flirting with young, attractive people, even getting some nudes or dirty talk out of it, is just about irresistible.

Scammers have gotten creative, though. It's not just a matter of, "hey, babe, I want your login info so I can put money in there - I promise I won't take your cash; here's screenshots of money I gave another girl" - it's "Here, I'll give you money on an Amazon gift card, and here's instructions for transferring it to Paypal..."

Screenshot provided by Birdie.

Of course, these daddies commit to their roleplay pretty intensely. One I spoke to said he was from a small American town, had succeeded by investing in gold and crypto currency, and talked about wanting to do good for others. Birdie's scammer made a point of claiming his religion motivated his ethical uprightness.

Screenshot provided by Birdie. 

Naturally, religion alone is no guarantee of morally upright behavior - especially on the internet. What the scammers' tactics amount to is a cup-and-ball game: they deposit thousands or hundreds of dollars in the form of a cheque or instant transfer, then withdraw the same amount immediately, or a portion thereof. The cheque, of course, does not clear - leaving the hapless mug with a huge NSF fee and deep overdraft. You don't have to have a lot of money to get targeted - all it takes is an open bank account.

Another tactic is to get someone to buy a gift card, and talking about overloading it. The thing is, the sugar baby is putting their own money down first, or getting a haircut or manicure that they normally wouldn't splurge on, as a sort of investment. Fake gifts with huge customs release fees also crop up. 

What really got me was that while some people see sugar babies as exploitative (which is false, because it's consensual), there's probably some other twenty-something sitting on the other side of the screen, who knows where in the world, and trying to make ends meet by grifting...another twenty-something elsewhere. At least people looking to be sugar babies are honest about their aims. Scammers aren't even doing that.

Is it safe to be a sugar baby? 

Honestly, maybe - but from skimming through Twitter's posts on the topic, it's easy to see a lot of names with a string of numbers after them, a sexy picture, and no profile details. Poor communication or writing skills and repetitive tweets tend to accompany these profiles. Although a plethora of emojis tend to frame most conversations, that alone need not disqualify someone.

I would say, however, that it seems sugar baby sites are disproportionate in terms of the number of providers to supplicants, with a three-to-one baby-to-daddy ratio. (There's a massive proportion of men seeking younger women compared to every other demographic.) Twitter seems to be where the scammers go, sadly - so someone looking to wade into the sugar baby life would be better off considering the financial domination world. That, however, is real work, just like any other form of sex work, and requires the cultivation of a persona, careful separation from one's real life, and other such precautions.

Stay safe by doing your research before you dive in. Consider checking out a site with moderation. Above all else, don't expect to be swept away by a millionaire - most sugar baby experiences seem far more modest, with hundreds or thousands of dollars as a weekly allowance, rather than the extreme surgeries and penthouse lifestyles featured in the most audacious and provocative profiles. Most sugar relationships don't seem overly emotional or exclusive, although some can be. Try to set your expectations to a moderate level, rather than listening to the secret cries uttered by wild hopes.

It's hard to be realistic when delving into what seems like a fantastical world - but even fantasy worlds have their rules, costs, and drawbacks. If all else fails, maybe listen to or read a bunch of fairy tales and internalise a balance of caution and adventure. At best, you might change your life radically. At worst? You could be stuck with a financial nightmare requiring hours of cleanup or worse.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

Paying for Pain: Sugar Scams, Part 2

When last I left off, I described a few terms and communities that I'll be referencing throughout this series. From the basics, let's go deeper. It's hard to understand a scam without knowing how the system is supposed to work. Buckle up. It might get weird.

Now, to explain how the scams work, let's start with the legitimate side of the community.

Disclaimer

This post will cover adult themes and concepts. I will try to be discreet and tasteful, but after this point, expect allusions to BDSM and sexuality. Reader discretion is advised.

Sugar daddies vs Paypigs - what's the difference? 

One of the most interesting things about the sugar daddy community/concept is that it seems as though scammers make use of both the widespread familiarity with the concept, and the lack of actual personal knowledge of sugar daddies. There is a definite and distinct code of conduct that people are supposed to follow - for example, never demanding nudes, being polite, and not demanding bank logins.

Sugar daddies, in contrast, don't seem to band together as much, and appear to take a more dominant role in the interaction than the Paypigs. There's a fair bit of hay made and ink spilled on the controlling nature of sugar daddies, and many people who assume the entire field is too dangerous or degrading to enter will point to such stories.

This is even more ritualised in the financial domination community. Curiously, I noticed an overlap between Red Pill terminology (beta, alpha, cuck, etc) and feminist language. Financial submissives - who were almost entirely men - would enthusiastically allude to giving money to women and empowerment. The corollary of this is that Dommes, and the occasional Dom, would talk about how attractive they feel and complement themselves. Selfies with butt and cleavage closeups or leg shots were common enticements. Although the Dommes appear to talk about feminist issues less, they do seem fluent in the insulting terminology preferred by the submissives.

The community appears tightly-knit, eager to share, welcoming, and surprisingly cheerful and warm. Although accustomed to this kind of high-energy friendliness from exposure to other BDSM communities, seeing the enthusiasm of these financial submissives surprised me.

Financial submissives - who are they? 

One might expect an Amazon Romance-type of situation - a youngish or zaddy-type attractive guy with millions of dollars and nothing to do with them - but from what I could tell, it seems like financial submissives actually have a variety of different jobs. Although large sums were tossed around in conversation - a thousand dollars, 20K, more - most actual financial domination is in the tens or hundreds of dollars per go, not thousands. This suggests that men with relatively normal jobs may be interested in the fetish, and that Dommes have moderated their prices accordingly. This makes a certain amount of sense, because fetishes rarely develop based on affordability alone.

In terms of what submissives like, there was a strong emphasis on chastity, tasks, and cuckoldry; worthlessness and enthusiastic grovelling, as well as self-humiliation, were common among the profiles and tweets. Again, some of the allusions to feminism and exploitation almost looked sarcastic - but most appeared very enthusiastic and sincere.

Is this legit?

Although I did see some chatter about fake submissives and fake Dommes, I don't know what distinguishes the one from another yet. I would assume it's a case of someone pretending to be a Domme, demanding money, and then cutting off contact rather than actually providing the fantasy experience a submissive is seeking out.

In terms of scamming daddies, however, the search was much more fruitful. But this is running long, and I'll get to that in the next section. Stick around! I have a few suggestions and things that aspiring sugar babies and financial dominatrixes should watch for.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

Everyone's Got an Angle: Sugar Scams, Part 1

The internet is a weird place. 

At this point, we're all used to that weirdness, at least to some extent. Shitposting meme lords taking credit for the election of a predatory president who has strong links to Russian powers? There was a time - as difficult to recall as it may be - when that sentence would not only have been nonsensical, it would have been absurd. But in a world that's seen the rise and fall of LiveJournal and MySpace, and the rise and corruption of Facebook - a world that encompasses furries, fandoms, podcasts, the resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons, and music like vaporwave and shoegaze - in this world, believing just about anything is easier, because the unspeakably absurd is eminently plausible.

So, with all this in mind, stumbling face-first into the financial domination and sugar daddy segment of Twitter didn't surprise me as much as it would have, say, ten years ago. It started with a few retweets of SugarDad1's content - the user conceals his identity, but generously sends money to randomly selected followers who retweet his posts. He appears to be genuine, at least from the size of his following and the screenshots in his feed. And if he's the real deal - who else might also be a genuinely altruistic person with more money than they know what to do with?

That's not to say I'm naive or unaware that people are sometimes keen to exploit others. Not everyone, but enough people. And isn't it always just enough people? I'm no stranger to the concept of scams. Podcasts like "The Dream" and "Sounds Like MLM, But OK" have done important and useful work in offering public access to information about multi-level marketing. It's inherently exploitative and nearly impossible to make lucrative, but social pressure and millions of dollars in lobbying have done their best to remedy that. We have all heard that "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," but it's always difficult to avoid the temptation. After all, what if, this time...it's real?

A brief disclaimer

Before I go any further, I should mention that this article series will deal with some very adult language and concepts. If you're not comfortable with sexuality and associated concepts from the BDSM and sex work communities, this might not be the series for you to read. If you're ignorant but intrigued, or comfortable and curious, then read on. 

Wait, what's a sugar baby? 

Back to the topic at hand. A sugar baby is someone who benefits from the financial and sometimes emotional resources of a sugar daddy or sugar mommy (a dearth of info about nonbinary parents exists). This is not to say that sugar babies don't do any work - the effort of replying to messages and various forms of emotional labor, sometimes with a sexual component and sometimes without it, definitely adds up. If it didn't, mainstream employment opportunities wouldn't have to pay people to man their customer contact and chat channels.

A more extreme and aggressive version of this is the financial domination subculture, which does overlap with the sugar parent world. "Paypigs" clean themselves out to fund their dominatrixes and Doms. Interestingly, "alpha," "beta," and "cuck" language has leaked into this subculture. Sometimes, tweets from the paypigs have an almost sarcastic tone when they refer to being cleaned out, being exploited, and etcetera. Many also appear to have foot fetishes and associated humiliation-based kinks.

However, it's important to remember that as with other BDSM and lifestyle posts, the apparent callousness and cruelty of these financial Doms is an act, part of the scene that is consensual - and probably not applicable to the rest of a Dom's life. (I mean, it might be, but I know a Domme or two, and apart from having strong personalities, they certainly aren't "on stage" at all times.) Ultimately, it's just another form of fetish and lifestyle escapism - if a particularly meta fetish in some ways.

Is it real? 

Here's where it gets complicated. There's a surprising number of posts on Twitter from people who claim to be sugar daddies that don't want/need sex, nudes, or videos, "just chat." Being a fiscally-disadvantaged Millennial, I couldn't help being intrigued. But the more I clicked on associated accounts, the more it became clear that investigating this on my main Twitter profile would, ah, contaminate my work profile.

I set up a secondary Twitter account so I could start talking to these alleged sugar daddies and find out what their deals were - and whether everything was as enticingly easy as it seemed.

Throughout this series, I'm going to share what I've learned - and most importantly, relay the byzantine and obtuse strategies that scammers are using to entice potential sugar babies into yielding up their info. Get ready for a wild ride and a dip into some very unique subcultures, and hold that credit card close - because even when it's maxed out, lot of people want it.

The irony! 

One of the things that caught my attention was that people tend to demean sugar babies and refer to them dismissively. As a sex work rights nerd, I'm accustomed to seeing that kind of talk directed at femmes and people in such realms - but I'm not used to seeing people scam said folks. While sugar babies - who straightforwardly admit that they're looking for financially-advantageous relationships - often get accused of being "gold diggers" and such, it would appear that the real scammers are on the other side of the equation.

I'm going to explain both the world of financial fetishism and the people looking to make a profit. This one's going to be short, but get ready for the next installments in this series. In the meantime, you can learn more about the world of sugar babies from the links already included in my article.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi