Deposit for Preset Appts

[Guest Bryan_Wilder]

I just had a client who push to make a deposit on PayPal to insure a hold on an appointment. I told him that I really prefer not to take payments before meeting. He say that he would only hire me if I allowed him to make a $200 deposit towards a two hour appointment. He made the deposit on Monday and when it posted to my account PayPal took a processing fee of $7. My bank account was in the red and took up most of the money when it posted on Wednesday evening. Thursday the client confirmed he sent several email through out the day talking about our appointment. That evening he cancelled which was the second time he had cancelled on me. He then sent and email demanding an immediate refund. In my experience clients who ask to make a deposit do so for two reasons one to make sure you won't cancel on them and second to show respect for the escorts the meet with incase they have to cancel on them. They never ask for a refund if they do hope not to loose the money the sent they ask for a credit towards their next appointment. Informed this client that I expected him to show for his appointment because he did make the deposit on PayPal. I informed him of the standard client etiquette and let him know that I no longer had the money and currently I am broke. He then started to threaten me with having me charged with fraud and that he was going to sue me. After about a day of harassing emails, text messages and calls. All the sudden he was up for meeting for an hour to use the deposit as a credit towards an appointment. After all I went through I had no feelings of owning him anything and also felt that meeting would end badly. I don't think I would be able to forget his behavior and move on. How should situations like this be handled? Was there something I should have done differently?

 

He is now even saying he is going to work with the police to harm me.

[imrthr]

I just had a client who push to make a deposit on PayPal to insure a hold on an appointment. I told him that I really prefer not to take payments before meeting. He say that he would only hire me if I allowed him to make a $200 deposit towards a two hour appointment. He made the deposit on Monday and when it posted to my account PayPal took a processing fee of $7. My bank account was in the red and took up most of the money when it posted on Wednesday evening. Thursday the client confirmed he sent several email through out the day talking about our appointment. That evening he cancelled which was the second time he had cancelled on me. He then sent and email demanding an immediate refund. In my experience clients who ask to make a deposit do so for two reasons one to make sure you won't cancel on them and second to show respect for the escorts the meet with incase they have to cancel on them. They never ask for a refund if they do hope not to loose the money the sent they ask for a credit towards their next appointment. Informed this client that I expected him to show for his appointment because he did make the deposit on PayPal. I informed him of the standard client etiquette and let him know that I no longer had the money and currently I am broke. He then started to threaten me with having me charged with fraud and that he was going to sue me. After about a day of harassing emails, text messages and calls. All the sudden he was up for meeting for an hour to use the deposit as a credit towards an appointment. After all I went through I had no feelings of owning him anything and also felt that meeting would end badly. I don't think I would be able to forget his behavior and move on. How should situations like this be handled? Was there something I should have done differently?

 

He is now even saying he is going to work with the police to harm me.

 

Don't pay any more attention to that guy.

 

If what you report is even half accurate, the man is too unpredictable for you to take a chance to meet with him. At best, you might want to return half of his "deposit" and explain that you incurred a bank charge and spent a lot of time over his changing of the original appointment.

 

Does he live in the same city as you?

 

To be blunt, if he tried to sue you (over a $200.00 dispute), you would not lose. This is because the basis of the contract between the two of you is not legal. An illegal contract cannot be enforced. Even if you advertise that your pay is for time only, any judge would know what is behind the agreement.

 

If he is foolish enough to contact the police and furnish details of why he sent money to you, he would be incriminating himself.

 

If he is alleging fraud, the police do not get involved with this type dispute.

 

Do not worry.

 

You might have to get a new e-mail address if he continues to harass you or a new telephone number if he calls you.

[Boston Guy]

Good advice posted by the previous poster.

 

The "client" who contacted you sounds unhinged; I think that you should consider yourself lucky to have not ended up meeting him.

 

Better luck with future clients.

 

BG

 

ps: If push came to shove, I'd probably have told him that "all deposits are non-refundable. After receiving your deposit, I reserved the time for you and did not book other clients during that time period. If you need to cancel, you may certainly do so but your deposit paid for the time we had agreed to spend together and which I reserved for you."

[jgoo]

How should situations like this be handled? Was there something I should have done differently?

 

 

Ideally at the time of the transaction it should have been made clear on a policy regarding cancellations and the disposition of any deposits (i.e. no refund, full refund, etc). Lesson learned for the future.

 

In this case, since nothing was stated it was up to what you feel is fair and appropriate. The argument that you could have had other appointments and that justifies keeping the deposit just doesn't seem to work for me. Everytime you make an appointment without a deposit you are foregoing other opportunities and you are taking the same risk of a cancelation without any recourse. It would be nice if clients offered you to compensate you in some way but I suspect that rarely if ever happens (and you probably don't ask for any compensation either).

 

What might have been acceptable (in addition to an offer to apply it as a credit to future appointments if that is something you would want to do) would be to offer a partial refund, the amount he sent minus a reasonable handling and processing fee for your time and effort to send back the money. Assuming an hourly rate of 200 and you can do it over the internet, maybe it is at most 15 minutes of your time so deduct 50 and the 7 that Paypal took, so send back 143. If you feel more of your time was used than this (compared to other cancellations), deduct more up to the full amount of course but give some details to the client.

 

This could have been a reasonable approach at the outset but this doesn't apply as soon as he started making threats. So with regards to this specific client and his threats, it is clear he has some serious issues and needs to be avoided at all costs in the future. Don't even consider a partial or full refund as that only encourages his rude behavior at this point. I agree with the other poster that the threats of a lawsuit or going to the police isn't very likely. However, he could end up being a thorn in your side (harrassing you in some various ways) and that is a risk but there is a good chance he will get bored and move on if you ignore him. Just turn up your radar for a bit to be extra cautious.

 

Finally, I am sorry you had to go through this and hope there is some good lessons to come out of it for you and ultimately it turns out fine.

[Bart]

First anybody who is that is insistent about doing things a certain way is to be avoided.

Second you offered to apply it towards a second meeting, that was more than generous.

He is basically a time waster and caught up in his own wacked out plans. I have no sympathy for idiots. Good lesson on how to respect people and their time.

However, if you feel returning 50% will help eliminate the annoying follow-up phone calls and nuisance do so.

[Romann]

Now this is a new one to me and I was sure that I had heard it all but apparently not. This is a strange situation and one that I wouldn't even be sure how to handle the situation.

[instudiocity]

Keep the money...

 

It's not half the compensation you deserve for that louse's behavior!

 

I agree with a No Refund Policy so long as the payment can be applied to a future date.

 

I've actually prepaid an escort because he revealed some financial issues to me in a friendly conversation over drinks one afternoon. We met as friends just for a drink-a social time.

 

In turn he repaid the advance over several visits and eventually made his hourly rate an evening rate. I guess he enjoyed my cooking and my wine cellar!

[kevininsa]

I agree with the part about incriminating himself. I wouldn't feel bad about not refunding the deposit since he cancelled the same day, though next time I would warn that up front. I hope he just slinks off and stops harassing you. Best Wishes.

 

KevinInSA

[Guest greatness]

hmm

 

Maybe he appreciated your caring heart. That escort was decent enough to pay you back over several visits. I wish I could meet a person like that too.

 

In turn he repaid the advance over several visits and eventually made his hourly rate an evening rate. I guess he enjoyed my cooking and my wine cellar!

[Juan Vancouver]

Hi Bryan.

 

First of all, I am very sorry to read that things are not going well with you. Times are tough, but things always start fixing themselves, so relax, do your work and remember that this is not going to last forever.

 

Now, about your wacky client, I have to say that no matter how many times I read your post, there is something that makes it sound like a "Beloved One, I will deposit one million and you send me back fifty thousand" scam. I don't quite understand how he wanted to make it work, but -insisting- that you allow him to send you money as a condition to hiring you makes it highly suspicious in my eyes. (The cancellation, the request of full expedite refund and the ensuing threats are all very common occurrence in such a scam.)

 

Whether that is the case, or whether you actually are dealing with a flakey and troubled individual, I ask you to focus on your safety and wellness. Follow your gut feeling at all times.

 

I just wanted to comment on deposits and how I deal with them.

 

I only accept or ask for deposits for engagements longer than two days. Blocking three or more days of my schedule without any compensation is more financial risk that I am willing to take.

 

I always ask for one third of the total agreed rate, and explain clearly that this is a non refundable rate in the case of a cancellation or change with less than one week in advance. If the cancellation or change happens before that period, I am happy to transfer the deposit to a future session of the same length.

 

I never accept the whole rate in advance because I have often thought this would only invite possible trouble since I do not want to engage in a game of sending money back and forth. I don't accept deposits or advance payment for short sessions either, being that there is nothing better than cash on the spot.

 

This has always discouraged people that are likely to cancel or not entirely committed with the session. I have not have a single cancellation, and only one session re-scheduling.

 

When it comes to short session same day cancellations, I would think that shit does happen. When a client cancels me on the same day for the second time, though, he goes into a very select short list. If a client wants to book a session after having cancelled two appointments on the same day I tell him that in order for me to accept this session he has to pay for 50% of the time he has booked and failed to honour plus the rate of the session he is wanting to have.

 

Most, of course decline and never try again. Some have accepted those terms and in a couple cases that has been the beginning of a long and close professional relationship. I have heard from escort friends that they are afraid such an approach would sound too cold and businesslike, but after all, this is a business and the more professional your approach to it, the fewer messy outcomes will be possible. Once all the financial and logistic details are taken care of, both escort and client can relax and put their mind entirely into what their minds should be: The time they are spending together and the numerous ways in which they can make this time special, memorable and fun.

 

Best luck to you, and I sincerely hope that he will soon move on.

 

A tight hug and my best wishes!

 

Always hard and warm,

 

Juan

[AdamSmith]

I've actually prepaid an escort because he revealed some financial issues

 

Same here, several times with people I already knew well. It was always repaid in services, with interest.

[Romann]

Talk the talk and walk the walk - he won't do it.

 

He is now even saying he is going to work with the police to harm me.

 

I would like to see him even try this and it's nothing more than a pathetic attempt to play the scare game. By him going to any type of police authority to report your for whatever reason would only incriminate himself - he's all talk but certainly won't walk the walk. If he has canceled on you twice, I would recommend you begin a "black list", block him on your phone and create a contact that says "DO NOT ANSWER" and place his email in your SPAM folder.

 

Another suggestion I would make going forward is not to transfer the money from your PayPal to your personal account till after the appointment is completed. That way, if you need to issue a refund for whatever reason, you can simply reject the payment on PayPal and they will send the money back and no one is charged any types of fees and tell PayPal who don't know who the sender is.

 

I hope this helps and I'm sorry to hear that you went through this. I have been thinking about this for the past couple days and for some reason it has resonated in my mind. Hold strong, be confident that you did nothing wrong and move forward but I wouldn't communicate with that person ever again for any reason especially since he's canceled on you twice in a row.