The usefulness of Suspected Adultwork Scams

[Daffodil]

I really appreciate the work Jacob started with the "Suspected Adultwork Scams" thread and others (notably aquarius) have continued. I've contributed a few myself.

However, how useful is it? I just don't know, it never seems to feature in my punting. It's now way too big to wade through looking for a particular girl and pictures within it have never come up on a reverse image search for me (perhaps that's just luck). In fact I've always been under the impression that reverse image searches won't link to it as the pictures themselves are not hosted on this forum. Is that correct?

Is it simply a tool for showcasing scam profiles and hopefully having them reported to AW and removed? And, if not, how do others use it?

Regardless of the answers to the above, I'd be interested to hear ideas regarding making it more useful. A huge amount of work has gone into it and it'd be a shame if it's not having the impact it could. One thought is if reverse imaging doesn't link to it currently, how could that it achieved?

[James999]

I've never seen the point of it, as a list of profiles that no longer exist and dead links seems pretty pointless, it was as you say Jacobs pet project and when AW were slower at deleting profiles it probably served a purpose, however it has become redundant.

To simply report the profile to AW (with the evidence) would serve the purpose of getting the profile deleted, the thread just seems to be a bit like people who go to Church on a sunday, saying to others "look how good I am being" 

[vorian]

If you do a search on UKP using the 7 digit AW code, I assume that suspected profile would come up on  the search allowing punters to make a choice with information available on the thread.

[Jimmyredcab]

I really appreciate the work Jacob started with the "Suspected Adultwork Scams" thread and others (notably aquarius) have continued. I've contributed a few myself.

However, how useful is it?

Pretty useless in my opinion, I stopped reading it years ago.     

[NIK]

I suppose it's extremely useful for members who punt regularly using AW, however for people like me it's pretty irrelevant.

However I applaud all the hard work that goes into it and it shows how many lowlife cunts there are in this business.

[JV547845]

It's never going to be scintillating reading but scam profiles aren't always dead forever, sometimes they're resurrected.  Just because the link is dead now doesn't mean it always will be.   This only ever catchs out lazy scammers though as it's easy for them to check if their scam is on a list of known scams and if so create a new one.  If only there was a quick way of taking all those links and adding them to a black list.

[NIK]

Yes, to be honest I don't read it, but when I have seen it I notice the profiles are usually predictably fit - this makes AWank all the more galling!

[yorkshire123]

In my opinion its the possible disruption factor to the pimps & scammers that i like about it.
It must be a bit of a nuisance to keep setting up profiles all of the time, that said its only any good if they are reported to AW & subsequently get removed.

Negative reviews are great but also quite subjective & very reactive.

Based on that what ideas if any do members have that could work in our favour?



 

[Jimmyredcab]

In my opinion its the possible disruption factor to the pimps & scammers that i like about it.
It must be a bit of a nuisance to keep setting up profiles all of the time.

They probably see it as a minor irritation.   

For every dodgy profile that gets taken down they will replace it with another two, they may even do this for a living ---- to top up their benefits.

The only solution is to treat EVERY Adultwork profile with caution, if it looks too good to be true then it almost certainly is.

[potato]

On AW, I have "new members" notification set up to notify me of new profiles within a 30 mile radius. I reverse image search them and report to AW any that are obvious scams. I don't bother to put it on the UKP thread any more as the Profile is usually taken down within 5 mins to a few hours so I don't see the point - the link is not going to go anywhere.

[Steve2]

In my opinion its the possible disruption factor to the pimps & scammers that i like about it.
It must be a bit of a nuisance to keep setting up profiles all of the time, that said its only any good if they are reported to AW & subsequently get removed.

Negative reviews are great but also quite subjective & very reactive.

Based on that what ideas if any do members have that could work in our favour?

The main thing that COULD work in our favour is to report SCAM /FAKE profiles to Adultwork

The only trouble is most of our members are too lazy to report them

[JV547845]

Adult Work could track their IP address and stop them from creating aliases but they're probably quite happy to pocket the credits of any profiles they close.  I think the scammers have to reach £30 before they can cash out, and a lot are paying £1 a day to show a phonee number so it's hard to those ones making anything at all.

[Jimmyredcab]

Adult Work could track their IP address and stop them from creating aliases but they're probably quite happy to pocket the credits of any profiles they close.

There is very little chance of them doing that, as I have pointed out numerous times Adultwork is a business not a punters benevolent society. 

[JV547845]

Well yes, quite.

[new_punter]

Perhaps the links will die, but the phone numbers do seem to repeatedly appear and if a member searches for a phone number can be found easily.

[wristjob]

I would have agreed it was pointless - til yesterday.

I did a reverse image search and it pointed here plus another post on UKP too:

https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=420.7825

So yes, probably not the best right now but if images were included more then it could be really handy

Sometimes though I do have to question whether a profile is fake just because pictures are on another site.

[akauya]

[...]

Sometimes though I do have to question whether a profile is fake just because pictures are on another site.

Me too but then it comes to using your judgement. If the same AW pics are on other sites advertising the same prossie with the same name and the same number and generally same location then most likely legit.

Most of the time they are just too obvious, like those profile pics that appearing in loads of different sites with different names and sometimes foreign sites in different languages with different locations then definitely fake.

[Daffodil]

I would have agreed it was pointless - til yesterday.

I did a reverse image search and it pointed here plus another post on UKP too:

https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=420.7825

So yes, probably not the best right now but if images were included more then it could be really handy

Sometimes though I do have to question whether a profile is fake just because pictures are on another site.

Agree with both your points. If the person posting in the thread includes the picture and they come up in reverse image searches then it could be very useful. Of course the images are not actually uploaded here, just linked to imageshack or whatever, so do they come up in searches? And, if so, do they link here as well?

I also agree that just because a picture is on another site it doesn't definitely mean that the profile is a scam. Needs to be taken in context.

[mattylondon]

Agree with both your points. If the person posting in the thread includes the picture and they come up in reverse image searches then it could be very useful. Of course the images are not actually uploaded here, just linked to imageshack or whatever, so do they come up in searches? And, if so, do they link here as well?

I also agree that just because a picture is on another site it doesn't definitely mean that the profile is a scam. Needs to be taken in context.

I actually believe it's been very useful. And in two ways.

1. It causes disruption to the scammers and yes, we know they'll create other profiles but nevertheless my point stands.

2. It captures pictures and links to different purported scams. This is important, in that even if the link is dead, the picture remains. 

Of course, it doesn't mean that every profile within that section, is a scam.