Seeking Arrangements

[Pessimist]

Yes, good point. Asset forfeiture is the biggest part of federal law enforcement in organized sex work stings. In addition to the lack of operating across state lines, independent escorts just don't have enough assets to seize. And another reason the federal government has its policy of not going after regular hookers and Johns. Hell, they don't really even care that much about the owners and operators once the government has its money. Many of the multi-state escort agencies have had the owners plea to deals with little or no jail time as long as they don't contest the asset forfeiture. The Backpage guys are still wanting to fight, but it appears the government is trying to get them to die of old age first.

What assets would SA have? Cash? It is just a site / app, there are no meaningful fixed assets. They can levy a huge fine but SA may fight it in courts if the cash they have to forfeit is big enough.

Also, SA is a private company. We don't know their finances. For all we know, they may have been drawing down cash regularly. Depends on how their company is set up and what what their needs are. The main costs for such a business are subscriber acquisition and some ongoing expenses related to product upgrades which can be funded from incoming cash flows. Apps like this can be quite high margin businesses and making tons of money, so the management does not need to keep a lot of cash in the company coffers for future investment. If the owners already took cash out, there is even less asset forfeiture possible. It would be tough to go after the personal assets of equity owners. Yes, if the main owner is also the main manager, feds can go after him using a criminal case perhaps but it is tough to go after the private assets of owners who are not involved operationally and invested in a passive capacity. And we don't even know if the investors are even in the US or are US citizens.

Shutting down would be a bit sad but what can we do! As long as they keep away from me, an individual male subscriber, I am reasonably happy.

[Pessimist]

I can not believe they are not doing it now. This would eliminate half of the problems with fake profiles and scams immediately. I wish they would implement this yesterday.

That would also scare many legitimate sugarbabes away. Even if the site assures them that their identity will be kept confidential, they will worry about it. Remember, there is an stigma to the girls as well. How many times have members here and elsewhere equated sugarbabes with WG? Those girls know that.

[WyattEarp]

How would the Feds shutdown SA completely if they chose? It seems like after the Feds took down backpage many sex websites were hassled (by their ISP? The sex sites including this one I believe simply domiciled their sites elsewhere.

Now the Feds could make subscription payments from the United States difficult, but they could never eliminate payments entirely. The worst case is they eliminate USA Sugar babies from the site.

[Elvis 2008]

I just checked and seeking app is till available in the Google Playstore. I know that it hasn't been in the Apple appstore for a long time.

They are taking it off September 1: https://www.androidauthority.com/sug...-apps-2020846/.

[BrizLad]

Yes, you were right. That was the case in the past. That is not what they are doing now. LE is targeting men. Period. I think google got tipped off and that is why they got rid of the seeking app.

I just checked and seeking app is till available in the Google Playstore. I know that it hasn't been in the Apple appstore for a long time.

[DramaFree11]

I can see a day where SA will have to ask for the ID of every girl that joins the site to cover their ass for underage girls lying. I think it would be a good thing to be honest. Protects everybody.

I can not believe they are not doing it now. This would eliminate half of the problems with fake profiles and scams immediately. I wish they would implement this yesterday.

[Mongerer88]

Yes, you were right. That was the case in the past. That is not what they are doing now. LE is targeting men. Period. I think google got tipped off and that is why they got rid of the seeking app.

That the feds are going to carve up seeking IMO is just a matter of time. My guess is they are more likely to bleed it though than kill it off. This is about money and always has been. LE thinks that any money that is gathered illegally is theirs. They have been looking to take the money in prostitution for a long time and made up trafficking as an excuse to do it.

Yes, there is trafficking and white supremacists and people who download child porn but in all those cases, the government uses those issues to carve into our freedom. Using trafficking as an excuse to bleed or take down seeking IMO is a done deal.

Yes, good point. Asset forfeiture is the biggest part of federal law enforcement in organized sex work stings. In addition to the lack of operating across state lines, independent escorts just don't have enough assets to seize. And another reason the federal government has its policy of not going after regular hookers and Johns. Hell, they don't really even care that much about the owners and operators once the government has its money. Many of the multi-state escort agencies have had the owners plea to deals with little or no jail time as long as they don't contest the asset forfeiture. The Backpage guys are still wanting to fight, but it appears the government is trying to get them to die of old age first.

[Elvis 2008]

The good news is that the USA Federal government has an official policy of not charging ordinary Johns or prostitutes in a prostitution case.

Yes, you were right. That was the case in the past. That is not what they are doing now. LE is targeting men. Period. I think google got tipped off and that is why they got rid of the seeking app.

That the feds are going to carve up seeking IMO is just a matter of time. My guess is they are more likely to bleed it though than kill it off. This is about money and always has been. LE thinks that any money that is gathered illegally is theirs. They have been looking to take the money in prostitution for a long time and made up trafficking as an excuse to do it.

Yes, there is trafficking and white supremacists and people who download child porn but in all those cases, the government uses those issues to carve into our freedom. Using trafficking as an excuse to bleed or take down seeking IMO is a done deal.

[Mongerer88]

I disagree with your post. If the feds can prove that SA is just a front for illegal prostitution and not straight escorting than they could in theory shut the site down. That is why the site is very strict on how you word things and why they added gifts to the site. We discussed that on another post. They close escort agencies for prostitution. They could do it to SA.

You missed the whole point of my post.

I agree with you entirely.

But Pessimist seemed to be asking about the effect on users of S. A.

When the federal government goes after a website or an escort agency, it doesn't involve the ordinary customers or workers.

You can look at countless examples including Miami Companions. The federal government has a long precedent on this. They go after owners and participants (those directly helping the owners run the enterprise) in the criminal organization. They don't release customer names. A notable exception exists for any ordinary user involved with someone underage.

It is a different story with state / local law enforcement. They often do go after the ordinary hookers and Johns, and some jurisdictions do release names out of sheer meanness.

That is the differentiation I was making and why I noted that S. A. Has characteristics that make a state / local "bust" unlikely.

It is the federal government that is the concern, and that doesn't involve the users.

[TjBrazil]

I can see a day where SA will have to ask for the ID of every girl that joins the site to cover their ass for underage girls lying. I think it would be a good thing to be honest. Protects everybody.

[TjBrazil]

The good news is that the USA Federal government has an official policy of not charging ordinary Johns or prostitutes in a prostitution case. Unfortunately, they say that anyone engaging a minor is not an ordinary John (even if he didn't know her actual age), so the one thing to be concerned with is that everyone you see is over 18. If they go after Gaetz for the crossing state line thing, that would be a big deviation from that policy, but they might justify it on the grounds that he is a public figure and might have been using campaign funds. But if a prosecution of him occurs, I suspect it will focus on the minor. This has been a pretty public and known policy of the federal government for a long time. If there is a federal government action against S. A. , like there was with Backpage, it won't involve customers, just S. A. Itself. Most view even that as unlikely.

And it is equally unlikely that any state / local law enforcement agency will pursue regular customers / sex workers on S. A. It is simply out of the modus operandi they have developed and utilized for years in prostitution cases. And there is still so much activity at the lower end of the scene that they can make their financial and media quotas.

I disagree with your post. If the feds can prove that SA is just a front for illegal prostitution and not straight escorting than they could in theory shut the site down. That is why the site is very strict on how you word things and why they added gifts to the site. We discussed that on another post. They close escort agencies for prostitution. They could do it to SA.

[Mongerer88]

Got it, thanks. Still, this needs watching. I am not in the camp of Elvis yet, but he has his points. I have taken the view that if you fly under the radar, keep it bland, respectful and cut out all references to sex or ppm and not indulge in sex on the first date etc, you might be OK. And so far it has been, to your point. But you have a good point that regional differences exist, some local LE can be more zealous than in other places and one of the sugarbabes going loco and faking some sort of assault or other stuff to blackmail you, as ELvis is hinting at, is a real scary prospect. Don't know how to put the odds on it. I guess it is one of those things which is unlikely but suddenly one day your luck changes and you are hit with a charge?

The good news is that the USA Federal government has an official policy of not charging ordinary Johns or prostitutes in a prostitution case. Unfortunately, they say that anyone engaging a minor is not an ordinary John (even if he didn't know her actual age), so the one thing to be concerned with is that everyone you see is over 18. If they go after Gaetz for the crossing state line thing, that would be a big deviation from that policy, but they might justify it on the grounds that he is a public figure and might have been using campaign funds. But if a prosecution of him occurs, I suspect it will focus on the minor. This has been a pretty public and known policy of the federal government for a long time. If there is a federal government action against S. A. , like there was with Backpage, it won't involve customers, just S. A. Itself. Most view even that as unlikely.

And it is equally unlikely that any state / local law enforcement agency will pursue regular customers / sex workers on S. A. It is simply out of the modus operandi they have developed and utilized for years in prostitution cases. And there is still so much activity at the lower end of the scene that they can make their financial and media quotas.

[BrizLad]

Over the next year, the plan is to make full week-long trips to other foreign cities and utilizing SA to hopefully get the same results I have enjoyed in Mexico. My goal is to get 3-4 short term GF's for the week who will provide the GFE in addition to touring me around their city, which I don't think pros in their respective locations are interested in doing. What are your opinions about the effectiveness of SA in the following cities: Lima Peru, Cartagena Colombia, Madrid Spain, San Jose Costa Rica?

I have had success with this in an Italian city. I did have a short list of SBs up until the final days before my arrival. I had extensive chats with the girls before arrivals which was good to weed out the professionals and the girls that weren't capable of holding conversation for an extended period. With your plan of extended time with the girl, you need to get along well. I arrived in the afternoon, got my hotel setup. The lady arrived after her office job and we had a light snack and a wine before giving her a chance to put her bag back at my room. Well that turned into round 1 as expected. Round 2 was after dinner. We spent the next two days doing the tourist spots, she supplied her car, usually one round of sex in the afternoon, dinner then and she would stay overnight of course. I was paying her meals and expenses as expected. She had a day at work and I toured myself until she joined me after her work again and we had a great farewell evening. I paid her the agreed amount for the four days.

Also just completed a similar arrangement here in Australia on a business trip.

You will need to have a shortlist of 3-4 girls for each of your available nights. SBs are very flaky until you have them in the hand.

I make this my standard MO when doing business travel to any location now.

[Blue Swede]

Over the next year, the plan is to make full week-long trips to other foreign cities and utilizing SA to hopefully get the same results I have enjoyed in Mexico. My goal is to get 3-4 short term GF's for the week who will provide the GFE in addition to touring me around their city, which I don't think pros in their respective locations are interested in doing. What are your opinions about the effectiveness of SA in the following cities: Lima Peru, Cartagena Colombia, Madrid Spain, San Jose Costa Rica?

I have experience from Madrid, Spain. It was a couple of years ago. I had a one week stay and I had prepared meetings in advance. One meeting every evening, starting with a "job interview" in the bar.

If we clicked, we proceeded to the room. .

I must say, I got a quite good hit rate. The fourth day, I cancelled the girl and repeated with the first girl. .

The bar man at the hotel soon understood what was going on. He smiled and showed thumbs up whenever he saw me.

Later in the week, I found out about Pigmalion Bar and spent rest of the time hunting there. Recommended!

[Pessimist]

Sorry, I didn't mean that S. A. Is a problem in those cities. Any issues with S. A. Will be federal, and there may never be any problems.

Phoenix did a customer name release in the Desert Divas case, and there have been plenty of attacks on agencies there. Back in the landline days, Orlando actually blocked the ability to dial known escort services from hotels. I realize now everyone has cell phones, but that county is still hostile to sex work. And Atlanta sneaks cameras outside of known multi-lady incalls.

You just learn which cities are most hostile over time. Of course even in those cities, they leave independent escorts who screen alone (although as a result of the hostility, the screening is more intense). But none of those cities have ever interfered with S. A.

Got it, thanks. Still, this needs watching. I am not in the camp of Elvis yet, but he has his points. I have taken the view that if you fly under the radar, keep it bland, respectful and cut out all references to sex or ppm and not indulge in sex on the first date etc, you might be OK. And so far it has been, to your point. But you have a good point that regional differences exist, some local LE can be more zealous than in other places and one of the sugarbabes going loco and faking some sort of assault or other stuff to blackmail you, as ELvis is hinting at, is a real scary prospect. Don't know how to put the odds on it. I guess it is one of those things which is unlikely but suddenly one day your luck changes and you are hit with a charge?