AW escort phone numbers now only visible to registered AW members

[Moby Dick]

The benefits of being an AW member far outweigh the highly unlikely event my email account used to set up AW (and for no other purpose) would be hacked and linked back to a “real” email address I log into these days. Best of luck to them since there is no link between my email accounts.

And then what?
I get an email “Give me £50k or I will tell your wife you peruse the AW site”
Ignore.

[RedKettle]

Let us suppose some state sponsored hackers (most of whom are a little bit cleverer than we UKP/AW punters) hack accounts of 20,000 punters on a site (those NOT computer savvy enough to cover their tracks).

They email them ransomware that infects and locks their computers (yes!! it CAN be and is done all the time) and remove all their pc content unless they pay say £1,000 to the hackers. Half pay up. They get £10million.

People are mixing up the issues.
Is it less easy now to use AW ?
Will a punter's info always be secure
Can a hacker get past "fake" emails ?
Will hackers bother.?

Anyone who thinks that to even raise these questions is "paranoid" or "alarmist" needs a moment of quiet contemplation and a bit of background reading.

Most people would use their normal email to go onto secretemail.com...to start their unique "fake" account, to use on AW, leaving a trail straight back to their own email account, if anyone can be bothered to look for it.

FFS, these guys can get into the Pentagon and Fort Knox computers. When the Pentagon's scared, brother I'm scared (or maybe I'm just paranoid).

Those risks are there as soon as you are online. Have an Aw account is a tiny increase.

You are simply wrong about the chain from a fake email, mine is not linked in anyway with another email account. If you have chosen to use something that links your fake and real emails you are an idiot.

Also like most conspiracy fools online you think nobody else has any knowledge of these subjects. Many of us do, and many of us like me work with real experts in the field.

[deek12345]

For the question of who "they" are...see attached.  There are lots of "they's" about. To be fair, many of these hacks are old and security has improved, but so has hacker's abilities. 

All of those on the list thought their info was safe, and many are probably now as paranoid as i am supposed to be (or they should be).

The second column is the number of accounts hacked. Some of them were inside jobs.

Paranoia should really be the default position. 



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[RedKettle]

For the question of who "they" are...see attached.  There are lots of "they's" about. To be fair, many of these hacks are old and security has improved, but so has hacker's abilities. 

All of those on the list thought their info was safe, and many are probably now as paranoid as i am supposed to be (or they should be).

The second column is the number of accounts hacked. Some of them were inside jobs.

Paranoia should really be the default position. 



Hidden Image/Members Only

Sensible security should be the default position. For example strong passwords and an alert system that tells you when any of your email addresses is associated with a data loss. However panic over things like using a fake email to find a shag is ridiculous.

[deek12345]

Come on red kettle. Calm down dear.

You are simply wrong about the chain from a fake email, mine is not linked in anyway with another email account. If you have chosen to use something that links your fake and real emails you are an idiot.

(So idiots at least are capable of retaining the link, and my advice to them is valid??)

Also like most conspiracy fools online you think nobody else has any knowledge of these subjects. Many of us do, and many of us like me work with real experts in the field.

Im surprised that since you work with "real experts in the field", you still think that being wary of hacking makes someone into a conspiracy fool. Why not have a chat with these experts ??, or look at my attachments.

No need to get insulting...but me a conspiracy fool for believing anyone can be hacked. ??

See my last attachment. Wikipedia must have become conspiracy fools too.

[A Decent Fist]

The brilliant AW Civilizer plugin for Chrome created by UKP member Kuck (there's a long thread about it on here – search for AW Chrome Extension) lets you narrow down an AW search to those profiles showing a phone number – without paying anything. It even shows you cached numbers for those profiles which have temporarily taken it off.

But following last week's change you still have to be logged in to AW to see the numbers.

As of today, Kuck as fixed that issue too: https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=280743.msg3440035#msg3440035

[ekimnik]

Just looked at aw & appears the phone numbers are once again visible to casual - as in not logged in - browsers.

[FiveKnuckles]

The benefits of being an AW member far outweigh the highly unlikely event my email account used to set up AW (and for no other purpose) would be hacked

Exactly.
without AW how do you keep a hot list and search the latest offerings?    I find VivaSt full of b&s and kommons difficult to search.

This is a storm in a tea cup for both punters and SPs. 
I believe punters will reluctantly sign up to get a number in the end, as little brain overrides the cyber risk.

[dadio]

Just looked at aw & appears the phone numbers are once again visible to casual - as in not logged in - browsers.

Yep, seems like they've heard the complaints and reinstated showing numbers without being logged in.

[honeypot]

Just looked at aw & appears the phone numbers are once again visible to casual - as in not logged in - browsers.

They probably seen a drop in profit. Alot of girls have stopped paying for the daily "local escort search" feature,  avalible today and phone number.  Just those 3 feature alone cost a total of £10 daily. I was spending £60 every week, just to advertise with them. I took that money and have made other adverts, on their competitors site instead.  I just can't trust aw to not pull a stunt like this again.   

[Sexpest]

It’s been changed back to showing numbers until next year ..

We have reviewed the recent change to only show contact information to registered members and have decided to revert it.

As some members had been in favour of it, having in fact asked for it, it will be reintroduced next year as an optional feature.

#AdultWork

[golden bull]

Bollocks. It’s all about the money 💰 💵.

[Lou2019]

Bollocks. It’s all about the money 💰 💵.

Of course it is I thought it was obvious  I would love to know AWs loss in revenue over the past few days

[FiveKnuckles]

#girlpower   

must had hit their bottom line?  makes sense to have it optional feature for the phone chat girls

[golden bull]

Of course it is I thought it was obvious  I would love to know AWs loss in revenue over the past few days

Yes I was stating the obvious. I’d like to know how much they lost too and interested in how SPs fared during the weeks fiasco.

Their MO eventually was probably to introduce membership fees. I just didn’t like how they were trying to force people to sign up.
True that signing up is not difficult with fake emails etc. but I’ve always been a bit of a rebel and didn’t like the heavy handedness way they were going about it.

Power to all the SPs who complained and the actions they took to force a reversal, Boris would’ve been proud 💪🏻!!

[Lou2019]

Yes I was stating the obvious. I’d like to know how much they lost too and interested in how SPs fared during the weeks fiasco.

Their MO eventually was probably to introduce membership fees. I just didn’t like how they were trying to force people to sign up.
True that signing up is not difficult with fake emails etc. but I’ve always been a bit of a rebel and didn’t like the heavy handedness way they were going about it.

Power to all the SPs who complained and the actions they took to force a reversal, Boris would’ve been proud 💪🏻!!

Completely agree 

[daviemac]

Come on red kettle. Calm down dear.

No need for that, you are showing just what sort of person you are.

Instead of worrying about a spurious emails, why don't you comment on the fact your IP address is stored on here and on the majority of other sites you visit.   

[Vic69]

Great news they have overturned their ill advised shenanigans!!  Just goes to show you shouldn't upset a forum full of angry prossies!  Lesson learnt to us all though, we need to take control back from AW and build our own websites and change our advertising, I think AW have done a lot of damage to their brand by doing this, makes you wonder what is next.  Just like to thank you guys for the general support in this.

[deek12345]

Well daviemac, my taking one risk knowingly might be thought unwise - my taking as many as I can might be considered totally stupid.

So - i both choose my risks and limit them. Who wouldn't. ?

Not sure what you mean by " you have shown the sort of person you are". I do hope you think I'm a NICE person, or i will be vewy vewy upset. I want evewyone to love me. 

I've been suggesting other punters be careful, not to automatically trust that their logged details are always safe (my attachments today prove they are NOT),  not to place too much trust in those on UKP who say they are safe, and not to lightly trust safe/secure email accounts. I think that's common sense, (maybe not totally common though) and with no ulterior motive than to warn fellow punters. Any contradiction of the above helps nobody.
I reckon GCHQ would say that's all very sound advice.

I suspect ? that most/many/some people on UKP think that to create a safe untraceable email, you use google to go on line, go to yahoo, and create a new email account there in the name of mehappypunter589.

My knowledge of computing extends to starting a computer and logging in. Others, like me, wouldn't have the first idea on how to create an email account that can't be traced. Whether anyone would bother to trace them is an entirely different question, and one you don't have an answer to - any more than anyone else has.

That hackers are busy and everywhere is a FACT.
That they won't ever bother to hack me (or cannot) is a GUESS.

the fact that that i log in to UKP and not other sites, does not make me a hypocrite. It just makes me more careful than some others about how wide my details are spread. If I think my details are a little bit safer on UKP than on eg AW, I think i can say so. 

So AW have reversed their 100% login decision, through losing money. As I said, "when looking for a motive, follow the money".

Maybe you could do something useful like giving punters a simple guide to setting up a secure email account, which I've heard mentioned a lot on this thread, but not yet heard described.

Another of my critics says today that he works with lots of computer experts. He can help too.

A Merry (unhacked) Xmas to all.

[sparkus]

So AW have reversed their 100% login decision, through losing money. As I said, "when looking for a motive, follow the money".

The Dude : It's all a god damn fake, man. It's like Lenin said: you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh, you know...

Donny : I am the walrus.

The Dude : You know, you'll uh, uh - well, you know what I'm trying' to say...

Donny : I am the walrus.

Walter Sobchak : That fucking bitch!

The Dude : Oh yeah!

Donny : I am the walrus.

Walter Sobchak : Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!

Donny : What the fuck is he talking about?

External Link/Members Only

[sparkus]

Great news they have overturned their ill advised shenanigans!!  Just goes to show you shouldn't upset a forum full of angry prossies!  Lesson learnt to us all though, we need to take control back from AW and build our own websites and change our advertising, I think AW have done a lot of damage to their brand by doing this, makes you wonder what is next.  Just like to thank you guys for the general support in this.

Punter power!

I'll let Rip Off Britain know, hopefully one of the admins will get interviewed by Gloria Honeyford.

[Lou2019]

Punter power!

I'll let Rip Off Britain know, hopefully one of the admins will get interviewed by Gloria Honeyford.

*Hunniford

I’m glad find it amusing, but the impact on not being able to show number to non registered members would have been devastating to some SPs (no not me thankfully!). I won’t go on about it but just bear that in mind.

[daviemac]

Not sure what you mean by " you have shown the sort of person you are". I do hope you think I'm a NICE person, or i will be vewy vewy upset. I want evewyone to love me. 

I mean you trying to be factious, telling people to'calm down'. Now I'll show you what kind of person I am by banning you. We have had enough of your bullshit scaremongering posts.

[finn5555]

*Hunniford

I’m glad find it amusing, but the impact on not being able to show number to non registered members would have been devastating to some SPs (no not me thankfully!). I won’t go on about it but just bear that in mind.

Don’t be daft Lou, far from devastating 😂😂

[Moby Dick]

*Hunniford

I’m glad find it amusing, but the impact on not being able to show number to non registered members would have been devastating to some SPs (no not me thankfully!). I won’t go on about it but just bear that in mind.

Worse than Covid?
Maybe SP reporting dusty phones is due to Omicron? Not AW?

[sparkus]

*Hunniford

I’m glad find it amusing, but the impact on not being able to show number to non registered members would have been devastating to some SPs (no not me thankfully!). I won’t go on about it but just bear that in mind.

Not amusing at all but the lifting of the policy is now fact so I'm not mocking anything likely to cause economic harm (yet).

[Trex]

Great news they have overturned their ill advised shenanigans!!  Just goes to show you shouldn't upset a forum full of angry prossies!  Lesson learnt to us all though, we need to take control back from AW and build our own websites and change our advertising, I think AW have done a lot of damage to their brand by doing this, makes you wonder what is next.  Just like to thank you guys for the general support in this.

That’s good, at least AW have listened to you and others to change their mind.

[pbrown355]

So all's well that ends well. For now at least. Although not for Deeks.

[pbrown355]

Also, AW may not have the best of reps with SPs or punters but they did take fairly swift action to correct their faux pas.

[scutty brown]

Also, AW may not have the best of reps with SPs or punters but they did take fairly swift action to correct their faux pas.

Six days, not that swift.
We'll have to await their next moneymaking wheeze

[Jiimmy]

WoW! Seems AW admins read through our rants and have restored the previous version. Sanity prevails. 

[Elfinboy13]

WoW! Seems AW admins read through our rants and have restored the previous version. Sanity prevails. 

Not us jimmy. They listened to the whores.

[Resources3xx]

Great news they have overturned their ill advised shenanigans!!  Just goes to show you shouldn't upset a forum full of angry prossies!  Lesson learnt to us all though, we need to take control back from AW and build our own websites and change our advertising, I think AW have done a lot of damage to their brand by doing this, makes you wonder what is next.  Just like to thank you guys for the general support in this.

great news for SPs. means nothing to us. not too long ago £50 was the going rate for a great service. now £100 for half an hour is the new norm for a bog standard service.standards have gone down the drain but prices have gone through the roof. thats because its an industry with no regulation and SPs get to rip us off. but thats not enough. you say "we need to take control back from AW and build our own websites and change our advertising"    is that so you can take advantage of us even more? prossies having MORE control then they have now is great news for you and bad news for us

[Moby Dick]

great news for SPs. means nothing to us. not too long ago £50 was the going rate for a great service. now £100 for half an hour is the new norm for a bog standard service.standards have gone down the drain but prices have gone through the roof. thats because its an industry with no regulation and SPs get to rip us off. but thats not enough. you say "we need to take control back from AW and build our own websites and change our advertising"    is that so you can take advantage of us even more? prossies having MORE control then they have now is great news for you and bad news for us

I agree that price increases are ruining it for punters who want to punt regularly. This is a different topic covered on numerous threads.
The rest of your post doesn’t make sense. AW doesn’t restrict the SP from charging more. They can do what you suggest now and stay on AW. They have control. It is AW who tried to take control by not allowing them to display their phone numbers openly to non members.

Regarding control, that’s good business practice. Manage the risks.
I would want any business to have control of their costs. Stability is what is needed. I wouldn’t want to do trade with a business that has an influencing parasitic partner. In this case a pimp or large advertising platform like AW.
If SP have more options for advertising then that could keep their costs competitive so in theory they could charge less. In practice (as in any business) they will charge the same and make more margin.
More options for advertising would however mean more places to search. More time consuming. Which I wouldn’t do. I would just use UKP as my source / search engine.
I am all for SPs looking at reducing their costs, rather than trying to pass them on as a price increase.

[Gordon Bennett]

Six days, not that swift.
We'll have to await their next moneymaking wheeze

What's wrong with making money? AW appear to have cornered a market and dominated it for several years with no sign of any sort of disruptive challenger muscling in on things. Given its entirely possible for a punter to utilise their site without paying a penny I can't really moan can I? As for the business women who use the platform, I can't see how they can gripe about handing over a couple of percent of their turnover to show a phone number and access other advertising features on there? I'm not up to speed on self-employed taxation but wouldn't advertising your services in a directory qualify for tax relief anyway?

[Vic69]

What's wrong with making money? AW appear to have cornered a market and dominated it for several years with no sign of any sort of disruptive challenger muscling in on things. Given its entirely possible for a punter to utilise their site without paying a penny I can't really moan can I? As for the business women who use the platform, I can't see how they can gripe about handing over a couple of percent of their turnover to show a phone number and access other advertising features on there? I'm not up to speed on self-employed taxation but wouldn't advertising your services in a directory qualify for tax relief anyway?

We wasnt griping about the cost of the phone number advertising (which is actually one of the cheapest features of AW), we was griping because we had paid for it and AW removed our number for all non registered SS, our phones literally stopped ringing for 6 days, as the majority of our clients dont have an AW account.  As a collective some of us did suggest that we would be happy to pay more than the 1.20 display phone number fee, as long as AW displayed it to ALL users.

[Lou2019]

We wasnt griping about the cost of the phone number advertising (which is actually one of the cheapest features of AW), we was griping because we had paid for it and AW removed our number for all non registered SS, our phones literally stopped ringing for 6 days, as the majority of our clients dont have an AW account.  As a collective some of us did suggest that we would be happy to pay more than the 1.20 display phone number fee, as long as AW displayed it to ALL users.

  This

[finn5555]

We wasnt griping about the cost of the phone number advertising (which is actually one of the cheapest features of AW), we was griping because we had paid for it and AW removed our number for all non registered SS, our phones literally stopped ringing for 6 days, as the majority of our clients dont have an AW account.  As a collective some of us did suggest that we would be happy to pay more than the 1.20 display phone number fee, as long as AW displayed it to ALL users.

AW are in it for the money so you either pay up or look for another platform to advertise on.

It isn't hard to create an account and if punters don't want to then that's down to them, I don't care what AW do, I don't spend a penny on the site and if they started charging I would look at other platforms to find pussy 

[Lou2019]

AW are in it for the money so you either pay up or look for another platform to advertise on.

It isn't hard to create an account and if punters don't want to then that's down to them, I don't care what AW do, I don't spend a penny on the site and if they started charging I would look at other platforms to find pussy 

I think this has all been said already

[finn5555]

I think this has all been said already

Maybe it has 

[Jiimmy]

I feel most of the SPs have increased the fees by at least £ 10 after this phone number glitch.
 

[maxxblue]

I feel most of the SPs have increased the fees by at least £ 10 after this phone number glitch.

Not in my experience. 

[Thephoenix]

Always nice to have a 'happy ending'.



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[A Decent Fist]

Solution if you are using Chrome on a PC, install the extension "Tab Reloader" which is a page auto refresh that you can set to say 5 minutes 

Took me a long time to check this out, but I can confirm it also works in the SW Iron browser (a customised version of Chrome) running on an Apple Mac. Thanks for the recommendation.

(The point of this is to stop you being logged out of Adultwork after 20 minutes of inactivity. Not everyone will want to use it.)

[marc_hotsteppa]

Took me a long time to check this out, but I can confirm it also works in the SW Iron browser (a customised version of Chrome) running on an Apple Mac. Thanks for the recommendation.

(The point of this is to stop you being logged out of Adultwork after 20 minutes of inactivity. Not everyone will want to use it.)

You're welcome, it's handy for PayPal too when you want to be kept logged in if you have a lot of activity on the account. 

[Resources3xx]

I agree that price increases are ruining it for punters who want to punt regularly. This is a different topic covered on numerous threads.
The rest of your post doesn’t make sense. AW doesn’t restrict the SP from charging more. They can do what you suggest now and stay on AW. They have control. It is AW who tried to take control by not allowing them to display their phone numbers openly to non members.

Regarding control, that’s good business practice. Manage the risks.
I would want any business to have control of their costs. Stability is what is needed. I wouldn’t want to do trade with a business that has an influencing parasitic partner. In this case a pimp or large advertising platform like AW.
If SP have more options for advertising then that could keep their costs competitive so in theory they could charge less. In practice (as in any business) they will charge the same and make more margin.
More options for advertising would however mean more places to search. More time consuming. Which I wouldn’t do. I would just use UKP as my source / search engine.
I am all for SPs looking at reducing their costs, rather than trying to pass them on as a price increase.

I don’t know the SP I was replying to she’s probably sound considering she’s on here. I was talking about SP’s  and the industry in a general sense. If u know what angle I’m coming from you’ll see how my reply is related to her comment. She spoke about SUPPORT. There have been many threads lately about how crazy the prices have gotten. Due to the rise of AW and the closer of certain parlours. Girls have have gotten power hungry and charging crazy prices…. Where was/is the punters support? We voiced our opinion but got laughed at by a few SPs. Yet when SPs were harmed financially they where quick to look for sympathy and many punters backed them up.

It would be nice if the support/respect was both ways. If I can draw parallel to football (or any business) the supporters are everything, without them they’d be no club. But there comes a point when power/greed takes over and they take advantage of the supporter

The same goes here. Without us punters many of these girls would be on minimum wage

As for AW, look, a monopoly is NEVER good and AW having a monopoly is good for them and SPs. Punters are the ones who suffer.

More sites/another site would be great for PRICES to be competitive (I’d use viva street if they could sort out their fake profiles) but when the SP above wrote “we need to take CONTROL back and build our website”  she wasn’t talking about anything that benefits the punters, only what benefits themselves

[triggs91]

Hmmm, I can see this being like a double edged sword of sorts. On one hand, its a bit underhanded of AW to do this, considering girls have to pay more money in order to have their number on show. On the other hand, I suppose its sort of making it safer for the ladies (at least in theory), as this way they know its an AW member contacting them, so if they wanted they could ask to view their feedback. I don't know, just trying to make sense of this.

They can argue that it is for the escorts safety that only a registered member has access to the phone number, they log the IP address and device details for all log-ins so if anything happens on a booking and they need the persons details they might be able to access the info from their log-in histories for the police.

I'm not saying that is the reason, just it is probably the argument they'll use.

Gumtree has been the same for ages there are still plenty of adverts on there for massage places

[daviemac]

Gumtree has been the same for ages there are still plenty of adverts on there for massage places

They are free to post their phone numbers in the text of the advert on Gumtree, they can't do that on AW, they have to pay to display it.