Let me start off by acknowledging that yes I am a dumbass, yes I am a fucking idiot, yes I am any synonym to those.

This literally happened yesterday. So I woke up yesterday and I was bored so decided to check out the more nsfw parts of Reddit because fuck it why not. I end up on an r4r subreddit for my area. I decided fuck it and see what it had. I see one post by a female asking if anyone wants to hook up so I decide to pm her and see if she’s down. She responds back and tells me to add her on Snapchat. After that we begun messaging each other being polite and then she asks to verify each other. I send her a selfie of me and she sends one back to which I learn immediately that she is a BADDY!!!! We agree to hook up and I ask if she can host, she says yes, we agree on a time.

Afterwards I ask for her address, she obliges to which I see something unusual. First red flag: She sends me an address two counties over all the while her Reddit post had her zip code location as the same county as me. An Uber from my house to hers would be about $70, I called up a couple of friends and asked if it was worth it, show them what she looks like and we all agree on “FUCKING DO IT” I text my brother and friends the address she gave me and I head out.

I get to the address and I message her saying I’d arrived. I’m on the front porch when she replies and asks me how I’d be paying. Now I am very pro legalize sex work and my opinion on sex work in general is if people are being safe, responsible, and consenting then I see no issue. I think it over and say fuck it I made it this far so might as well see it through. I ask how much and she says 100. I say okey and say I’ll pay once I see her, she says no and to pay her half immediately to show I’m serious. I’ve never done this before and it made sense in my head so I ask how to pay her and she says Venmo and sends me a username. Second red flag: When I check the profile it’s a completely different woman, I thought I had been talking to a black woman with one name and I’m sending money to and white woman with another name.

I call my buddy and explain to him the situation, assure him I have my knife on me in case things go wrong and tell him to check back in 2 hours. She confirms she received the 50 and said to pay the other half and just come on in. I send the other half and walk right through the door to see a dog barking right at me to which I realize that this is not her house. A middle aged man comes out on the porch to which I give him the name of this woman and that she gave me his address and she texted me saying come on in. He tells me there’s no one by that name there and I apologize sincerely for the confusion.

I step off his property and decide to just stand on the sidewalk in front of his house because I don’t know where to go or what to do and this the only information I’ve been given. At this point I call her asking where she is and I’m asking her why she sent me to some random person’s house, she doesn’t pick up and tells me it was a mistake and that she was near by. She then says she likes having sex while high and that I was paying another 50 on top of what I gave her. At this point I’m thinking to myself “150 for an escort?…….Yeah make sense” so I agree but only if I get some kind of in person proof that she’s real.

We argue back and forth about it and after some begging, promising, and a little dirty talk I reluctantly send the last 50. She verified it and then asked where I was, I tell her and she says she’ll come to me and take me back to her place. I say okey and ask how long she’ll be, she says a couple minutes, 10 minutes pass and I ask where she is, she says she was caught up in something and that she’s like 20 seconds away, I ask what she’s wearing to keep an eye out she says baggy pants and a crop top.

A couple more minutes pass and she tells me she had to pick up some contraceptives and an online order she had. She then tells me she’s 40 dollars short to pay for her online pick up and asks me to PayPal the vendor 40 bucks. At this point I’m thinking “I’ve paid 150 for sex……..this 40 bucks?…..I guess I’ll be nice” and sent it. She then tells me it didn’t go through because I sent it as a business transaction and not as a family and friends transaction. She then tells me her uncle came home and that she wants me to get a hotel.

At this point I’m like fuck this shit this bitch is lying to me about the PayPal and wants me to get a hotel, fuck this shit I’m going home. I tell her I’m leaving to which she’s still trying to convince me to stay. I’m the heat of the moment I just get pissed, cuss her out, get in the Uber back home, and cut my losses. She then responds that she’s reporting me to the police. I call her bluff and ask for what, she starts trolling and says she’s been a cop this whole time, snaps me a pic of a police badge for the city I was just in and asks me where I am. I tell them to go fuck themselves and I head home. I woke up this morning and saw that my 40 bucks got refunded. I know I’m a dumbass I take full responsibility.

TL;DR- asked a woman on Reddit if she wanted to hook up, found out she was an escort, got scammed, yes I’m an idiot

Edit: wow I thought I’d get some interaction but I didn’t expect it to blow up this big this fast. Im trying to read all the comments. A lot of people were complaining about the wall of text so I broke it up.

To those asking me to send them money I appreciate you.

To the people calling me an idiot I literally acknowledge that in the very first sentence, I know to the extent how stupid this was so calling me dumb is like calling a spade a spade, there’s no point. If you’re going to call me an dumb at least be creative.

To u/tilydaballey thank you for the dm it made my day

Edit #2: I had to delete Reddit from my phone for awhile so I just logged in and wow I didn’t think I’d make the front page but thank you.

To everyone messaging me personally I appreciate the support. To everyone who has offered me sex I am flattered.

When I last checked there were some recurring themes I thought I should address

Thank you to everyone showing concern for my safety, I know what I did was stupid and there was risk of me getting hurt although that died down after about an hour of not meeting her.

A lot of you were telling me to get my money back. I literally called my bank to ask them if they could stop the pending payments on my account and they told me to talk to venmo. I talked to venmo and they said because I sent it as family & friends and not as a business transaction they can’t do anything about it. I’m not sure if I have any legal ground to stand on seeing as what I did was technically illegal, if there are any law students or criminal justice majors who are willing to give me free legal advice on this I wouldn’t be opposed.

To everyone telling people to stop calling me an idiot I don’t mind I know I’m an idiot that’s why I posted this.

To everyone asking how could I be this stupid I’ll just let you know this isn’t the first time I thought with my dick but it’s the first time I lost money because of it.

Again thank you to everyone showing support I was not expecting this to blow up this fast it’s a little overwhelming.

Edit #3: I’ve now learned what the sunken cost fallacy is thanks to you guys