VOIP phone -- Problem from agent

cb491

tried to book ASB.. text them.. then then said book for ppl using VoIP...

come on.. we come out to play.. of course try not to use my daily phone.. in case got caught by gf.. not everyone have money to get a 2nd phone..

any other agent with such rules?

fireandice

Yes. And it helps to put yourself in the other person's shoes for a moment and think about it from their point of view.

Many shops will have some sort of screening process for new clients. Not accepting booking from VOIP calls is very common. Some agencies will phone interview a new customer to "get a feel" about the person, while others will ask for a reference from an existing customer or another shop they are on familiar terms

So why is this? Are they deliberately trying to make your life difficult? Do they not want your money?

Obvious not. So why do they still throw out these barriers?

For one thing, an established agency has a lot at stake and a lot to protect. Their reputation in  the eyes of customers, and their reputation in the eyes of working girls, which are two separate things mind you, are valuable though intangible assets which must be protected.

They need to screen for bad or abusive customers, crooks and thugs who will try to rob them, competitors who are trying to sabotage their business, and possibly more.

As with all security measures, nothing is ever foolproof. If someone is smart and determined, they will figure out ways to beat any security measures in place. Yet still, having some form of screening is better than none. It will at least deter some trouble if not most.

VOIP calls, if accepted, makes it way too easy for someone to mess with them. Think of all you could do. After all, there is zero cost to continually opening countless numbers (which is exactly why Wechat ads cannot be trusted at all).

Sure someone can keep registering new regular phone numbers to cause trouble with, but at least there is a time and monetary cost to doing so.

TBH, I have much greater faith in an agency that has these security / screening measures in place than one that has no screening at all and will accept any customer from anywhere.

fireandice

Think about it. A shop that doesn't have any form of security controls is one that doesn't care at all.

* They are desperate for business, which means the place is a dump.

* They are a complete dump, hence nothing worth protecting.

* The agent or shop may not be an agent/shop at all. As others have mentioned before, a lot of guys pretend to be agents but have no MM's of their own. They simply contact any MM they can find and offer to send customers over for commission / referral fee. Hence they don't give a shit about the customer or the MM. If anything bad happens, they have nothing to lose, even if worse comes to worse all they need to do is change their name.



Its worth your while to get a separate phone number for hunting. If you have money to hunt, you have money to get one. You don't have to buy a fancy one, a low end Android phone cost less than a hundred bucks and a pay-as-you-go plan is like twenty bucks a month.

mmpleaser

The most exposed are the indie mm.  No front desk to screen the calls.  They do not have time and money to have long list of regular clients to filter out.
Heard of too many incidents first hand about robbery.  Some robbed after the event.  SO lost both money, assets and body.

If I have my way, I will operate a switchboard to keep and filter out all NEW phone numbers unless it is checked out.   Like you said, not just money is at stake, also the scare one has to go through.  One mm got bruise when she fought with the jerk at 1 AM hotel room.  She was a tourist, or local residents can screen and get the jerk right in the hotel.