Our thoughts on verification, duplicates, reviews and other issues

Many of the users/profile owners seem to forget that we only offer place for the escorts to advertise on our website, and this is a digital platform, we NEVER meet them in real life, which means, that verification is never possible with 100% accuracy, it is not even guaranteed, and this information can be found in the help section of our site in the "rules of verification" part, which only a few cares to read. Still, we do our best and try to be fair and careful about verifying profiles and checking for duplicates, but thousands of profiles have been created on our site, and we have tens of thousands of users. Despite having our tools, and constantly developing new ways to get a more accurate verifying system, finding a duplicate is simply not possible, unless it is very obvious or it is reported to us. This is one of the reasons why we introduced the "Report" button; since the users meet the advertisers not us, we have given them the right to report the advertisers if something is off, and we thoroughly investigate each report, and fix a problem if there is one. 

But it does not end here. Yes, there are advertisers who play by the rules, upload verification photos when needed, only use their own photos, and do not try to create duplicate ads. But not every advertiser is genuinely good and plays fair. Some advertisers use photo editing software to mask the truth, create better looking body making themselves look taller, slimmer, smooth out skin, make the eyes look bigger, retouch birth marks, tattoos, remove body defects if there is any, and even combine different photos in one to make it look genuine. This is just what they can do with a software, from one photo with the help of a smartphone app, or a computer with Photoshop. And then there are those who use different make up, nails, eyebrows, show different part of their bodies while covering up others, put on different wigs, take photos from different angles in low light, in bad quality, they go to such lengths only to be able to create a second (possibly verified) profile. But there are different type of duplicates! There are those, who simply forgot that they had a profile before, because they advertised with us years ago, and now they are back and want to continue, but they do not remember their passwords, so they just make a new profile and get verified because they seem genuine with real photos, without the intention to cheat! And there are those advertisers, who had their profile or email account hacked before, and they needed to start over with a new registration. There are those profiles which had been verified at first, but after or even before the expiry of the 5 months verification period (we can and do ask for new verifying photo anytime we think it is necessary, or when a profile is reported) they just could not verify the profile again, or even worse, a different person verifies the profile, because the original owner gave it to a friend, often with good reviews and immaculate history. We call this "profile swapping", it is strictly forbidden, and it is our top priority to hunt down these profiles and users!

There could be so many reasons the users (and even we) might not know about. In a world so perfect where people are honest and use their real photos, respect each other, remember everything, yes, a simple verification system would be enough, in fact, there would be no need for admins and human interaction at all, the system could be controlled by a software and algorithms. But with conventional methods, it is not possible to verify profiles and categorize verification with a 100% guarantee on a digital platform without face to face meetings. We can always get closer to that 100%, but never quite reach it.

And this is only about verified profiles. But what if someone does not want to verify? Well, they have every right. Maybe the person wants to hide her identity for genuine reasons. Maybe the person does not want to use her full body photos, which makes verification impossible again. Maybe these are duplicates, yes. And how do you prove that? You cannot, you can guess by reading the signs. By checking profile information, comparing photos, checking comments, reviews, checking if profiles change city together with other profiles, and so on (tattoo shared a nice collection of these "tricks"). But is this proof of anything? No, not really. For instance, moving together might indicate that someone shares apartment with others. By looking at housing prices in Stockholm alone, are you surprised that someone wants to share? If yes, then you have never lived in a western world capital in Europe, or really anywhere in the world. In any case, this can be just as true as that the profiles are duplicates of the same person. But without hard proof, we will never know. Hard proof is when you see (well, we see) a person face to face, and we say that this person is the one on the photos, or not. But it ends here, because this is only valid as long as the verification process takes places! It is impossible to guarantee who will meet you in an apartment, even if the profile is verified, how could this ever be guaranteed? Having a verified profile on a website like ours only means that at the time of verification the owner of the profile could provide us with an up to date verifying photo, which seemed genuine! Having a verified profile on our site, and living in an apartment by having access to a verified profile are not the same. But when a report comes in, we do our bit, and take it seriously. Nothing can be guaranteed, but we are still trying, and we have our tools to do as good a job as possible.

Also, we never participate in the meetings, which means we cannot possibly know for sure if a review is completely real or not. There are signs that something might be fake, but we can never have hard proof, our decisions are based on past experience, user/profile history, reports, and anticipation. A review writer can be anyone, agents, users, escorts disguised in fake user accounts, and they can have many motives to write a review, such as increase the rating, holding a grudge, helping a friend, destroying credibility and good rating, being blackmailed, and last but not least, genuinely describing how a real meeting went down. We certainly have tools at our disposal to filter these out, but there are a lot more tools available for fabricating genuine looking reviews than what we can use to filter these.

Users of this site have to understand one thing, and remember it well. Only one type of real, genuine user exists on this site, and this type is the verified advertiser, who reveals his/her real identity by providing real data for verification purposes. All other users of this site are just nicknames with a working email address behind them. Anyone can create tens or hundreds of free email addresses using any of the email providers on the internet, and register on our site with it for free. These users do not risk anything, if one account gets blocked, they make a new one (a "duplicate" if you will) with different name, and problem solved. They use our site for free, they browse for free, they enjoy the features of this site, write comments and create content. But they also abuse it sometimes (not everyone of course, but quite a few) by insulting others, send spam messages (either privately or in public), write fake reviews, or even try hacking phones. And they do not risk anything. Only that one type of real user has something real to lose, the verified advertiser, and expecting us to just remove problematic profiles straight away instead of offering a way to fix it is wrong! Even some users (not advertisers) of this very forum topic have been given second chances, and still we grant the same freedom as before, the same rights to users and advertisers. 

It is easy to be smart about something that someone knows very little about, but of course we always accept constructive criticism and suggestions to make the system better, even if it is not given to us in a respectful manner. It is very unfair, stupid and evil to think that we do not care about user experience, "customer satisfaction" (excuse the pun), and that we do not take our responsibilities seriously. Yes, there are mistakes sometimes, but to be honest, some of the people (advertisers, users) do not really make it easier for us to avoid them. The mistakes do not happen because we are ignorant or because we do our jobs poorly. They happen because some users and advertisers abuse our system, and intentionally make it more difficult for us to do our jobs and keep the site clean and in order. They do this to gain advantage, to destroy competition, because they hold a grudge, they had a bad day, or simply out of fun.

Now, here are some suggestions and ideas, some of which we got from users, these could work in real life and SERVE AS HARD PROOF if needed:

#1 - making all users and profiles register with their real email address, real IDs, phone numbers, verifying themselves on a personal meeting, so they can be found and hold accountable for their actions in real life

#2 - in addition to #1, making ALL users pay for the membership as well

#3 - organizing patrols (undercover) to check who the users really meet in an apartment, and to see which advertisers move city physically together in real life (not only on the site) to check for duplicates and fake advertisers

#4 - planting hidden cameras and microphones to see and hear what really happened and had been said on a meeting, so we can easily decide who is right when two parties are in dispute over a bad review

#5 - setting up an independent body, that consists of the oldest advertisers and most trustworthy users, and setting up a jury, and choosing supervisors to check the work of the jury and the "council" (all members must be verified with their photos, real addresses, phone numbers and IDs), and they will decide about verification and reviews after examining evidence and organising hearings and interviews, so everyone can finally be hold accountable for their actions and mistakes

Anyone can see that this is utter nonsense! Yes, these methods would give the hard evidence needed for taking action and to bring justice without doubts, to avoid mistakes and to be able to truly decide who is fake, and to decide what review is fake, and they would finally give the 100% guarantee everyone wants so badly, but none of this would ever work on our site, especially not in Sweden. Maybe #2 could be put into practice, if it is thought out well and we could set that minimum amount of fee which would keep the users from registering multiple fake accounts, but it must be a high enough amount that would definitely prevent users/advertisers from adding and sustaining more than one real account. 

So what else could be done then? We keep the system we have and fine tune it. So far it has worked as well as any digital advertising medium can. And one of the reasons it works well is the community. This is very important! We, the admins are limited in what we can do, but the users and the advertisers can help each other, if they wish to, this is what the forum, the blogs and the private messaging system are there for, so please start using it for something constructive!

Also, please remember, only a few unhappy voices stand against the silence of many others (49000 members registered so far in the last eight years, including the profiles, and we have an average 18 - 20 000 daily visitors), but anyone with a registered account is free to share opinion and write a comment, and take part in debates, and we encourage you to do that! It is not possible to make everyone happy, still we think we are doing as good a job as humanly possible within the limits of Swedish law and the limits given by the type of this advertising method, and we will continue to do so with your (users and advertisers) support. 

I hope this answers your questions and sheds some light on how things can and cannot work here. One more thing. Before reacting to this post, please, take the time to read the whole text thoroughly, and try to place things into all 3 perspectives; the users', the advertisers', and the admins'. This will probably save another huge debate from breaking out, and life can go on peacefully. If you have questions after reading, chances are the answer lies in this text somewhere already, so please read it again, read between the lines! And if you still have questions, feel free to browse the help section for more information about our system and its rules, or you can contact us!