So this is sort of an update about something that happened to me a couple years back. I won't repeat the whole incident, but I've gained a couple insights about things since then.
How it went down; I went to an adult hookup site, and found a profile that interested me. An attractive redhead.with the tag line "A fierce chastity queen and fetish madame accepting proposals from submissive slaves who wish to be owned." Intrigued, I investigated and it looked like her list of preferences and fetish ideas were close to mine, so I thought I'd follow up. I wasn't sure if she was just a pro, or someone looking for a deeper connection but at the time I was unattached and thought it might be worth checking out. So I sent an introductory e-mail and asked "are you from my city?" "Yes I am" was her short reply. Then I told her a little more about myself and thought I'd see if she wanted to meet for coffee and chat about interests, or, you know, just get to know you chit chat and see if there was a connection. One word reply: "Okay." So I said, great! How about we meet Saturday early afternoon (1:00 PM) at this local coffee house? "Sounds good." was the reply.
In hindsight, it is clear that these were just auto-generated replies. I had hoped to get her to open up a little more in the e-mail dialogue but I figured, well, maybe she'll open up more when we meet in person. But I was still rather apprehensive, and as it turned out I was probably not talking to ANYBODY but some computer algorithm generating auto-responses. So, that afternoon I texted her that I was on my way (no response, naturally) and when I got there- well, needless to say, there was no attractive redhead fierce chastity queen or fetish madame. And the phone number I had for her was disconnected as soon as I tried to call her.
This all went down a couple years ago, back in February of 2023, and I talked about it here at the time, as I was kinda disappointed by the whole experience. But a couple months later, I got curious, went back to that hookup site and really started digging around. I looked at ads from cities across the country. Sure enough, there she was- same ad, same pictures, in a city 2000 miles away. But not only that, there were other ads with the exact same tagline and same text- but different photo sets! And ads with the same woman's pictures- but different names, ages, and so on, to go with them. And not just her- EVERY ad on that site was like that. ("Hello, I'm so-and-so, possibly the worst high class mistress, but don't worry, we all say we're the best!" said several allegedly different people on there.)
It was all fake. Every single ad on there.
I guess I should be glad; I wasn't taken for any money, and I've since heard horror stories about people being subject to blackmail after responding to the fake ads on this site. I don't know if that's true or not. So, no harm done but I still feel kinda dumb for being naive like that.
So then, I used a Google Image Search on the picture I had been drawn in by, just because I was curious. It turns out the photos were taken from a popular TikTok model named Sylvanas, a self -described "Appalachian Goth", Bass player, and evolutionary biology major." I don't spend much time browsing TikTok; to each their own but I consider it largely a waste of time, so I had no way of knowing how famous or popular she was. And it should also be said that I have no hard feelings toward this Sylvanas person whatsoever. She obviously had nothing to do with those ads, and none of this was her fault.
I guess the moral is, if you see someone on an adult dating site who may or may not be real- image search is a good tool to weed out the fakes and the scammers.