Have you ever received an e-mail from an attractive woman claiming to live in your local area who wants to meet with you for absolutely no reason? What about a Skype contact request from a well-endowed young woman looking to haphazardly meet older singles. What would you say if I told you that these are, in fact, men posing as women to make money off of your desperation, also known as “e-whores”?
What Is E-Whoring?
E-whoring, despite being illegal in most cases, is a black hat technique that is actually quite common on the Internet. Now, e-whoring is not to be confused with “cam whoring”, which is where a woman (or occasionally a male) poses in front of a webcam and “models” or stripteases. E-whoring is instead the act of luring desperate or lecherous men into paying the e-whore large sums of money for an excuse that was fabricated by the e-whore (more on that later).
Is E-Whoring Illegal?
While I am not a lawyer, In most cases, however, e-whoring can be consider illegal under the following laws (this is only applicable to the United States):
Fraud/Misrepresentation
If someone signs up to a cam show that you claimed that you were on when in fact you were not really the one in the photos to begin with, this could be considered fraud.
CopyrIght Infringement
If you stole someone’s image and are using it without their consent (especially for “commercial purposes”), this is copyright infringement.
Identity Theft
In addition to copyright infringement, using those stolen images to pose as someone you are not for the purpose of deceiving them into giving you money is identity theft.
Emotional Distress
If the woman in the images that you were using discovers that you were posing as her and sullying her “good name”, she could claim that you caused her emotional distress in court.
Sexual Harassment
If you send lewd and unwarranted messages to strangers and discuss various sex acts with them, they could claim this is sexual harassment
Mail & Wire Fruad
Finally, if a lecherous man sends you money or gifts so that you can visit him when you never intended to do this in the first place, this is considered mail & wire fraud, which is a federal crime.
5 Signs Of An E-Whore
E-whores come in many shapes and sizes, although the following signs are pretty consistent with e-whores:
- They’re almost always males
- They’ll only use attractive photos of themselves
- They will not get personal with you
- They’ll ask you for money before you meet them
- They’ll use outdated teenage colloquialisms
Common E-Whoring Methods
Blackmailing The Customer
There are conniving e-whores who speak to men only to procure embarrassing or nude photos of them so that they can blackmail them later. These e-whores often don’t need to put much effort into their work since they can most of their “customers” will send the pictures fairly quickly and without hesitation.
Converting The Customer
Remember those excuses I mentioned at the beginning of this article? Well, some e-whore are actually affiliate marketers whose goal is to procure as many conversions as possible (sign-ups). These affiliate marketers will pose as women and talk to their male customers long enough for the customer to ask to meet them in person. The affiliate marketing e-whore will then use an excuse such as, “I would feel more comfortable if you joined this dating website that I’m on since it will confirm you are who you say you are”. Once the customer joins the dating website (or cam website), the affiliate will be paid a commission for the conversion and move onto the next customer.
Milking The Customer
These e-whores take e-whoring to a whole new level! These e-whores make it a goal to target wealthy older men who are bound to shower the e-whore with gifts to impress them and hope that they someday return their unrequited lust, only to have their funds drained and the e-whore nowhere to be found. These e-whores employ a variety of tactics and tools to make their Internet personalties seem genuine. Speaking of tools…
Tools Used In E-whoring
Aside from the men they use, e-whores also use a variety of tools to fake their identity. Many of these tools are used to avoid being tracked and penalised for their actions.
Facebook Profile Pictures
You can often find hundreds per profile and they often include selfies. Experienced e-whores will often alter the photos enough for them not to display any results in a reverse image search.
Canadian Paypal
The reason are a Canadian Paypal account specifically is because an e-whore can accept payments immediately after creating the account, allowing them to get started faster.
Multiple E-mail Accounts
E-whores often have a copious number of e-mail accounts to avoid leaving footprints and to manage their customers more efficiently by separating them by e-mail. Speaking of footprints…
Virtual Private Network (VPN)
This is a must-have for e-whores. These networks, when used on a public network, encrypts your Internet traffic and allows you to browse the web privately without the risk of being discovered due to your connection being rerouted through the VPN connection.
Tails (Operating System)
For the extra paranoid, this operating system protects the users identity by being privacy focused and adding an extra layer of anonymity to their actions.
Virtual Cam Whores (VCW)
This is probably the most interesting tool used by e-whores that I’ve seen. Before I get into how these work, here’s a bit of history about them.
You see, in the past, when an e-whore’s “customer” wanted to see them in a chat, the e-whore didn’t have many options to maintain their façade.This led to many e-whores losing money due to more and more customers asking to see them in a cam chat, so some programmers managed to create what they called “virtual cam whores” to outsmart the customers once more and to make themselves seem more genuine.
Now, you may be wondering how these “virtual cam whores” work. Well, they are actually Flash programs that are played through the webcam (instead of using the real webcam) to allow the e-whore to control a fake cam whore by using various functions (wave, smile, flash, show cleavage, kiss, etcetera). These programs usually work well enough to convince their lecherous audience that they are real since their audience most likely does not know about these tools.
Important Information About E-whoring
Many people believe e-whoring would be an easy way to make money online, although this is a job that I’ve heard many people call “stressful” due to the number of inappropriate messages and pictures the e-whore receives from their customers along with the time investment that often does not guarantee any payment. On top of that, the investment and risk associated with e-whoring is often not worth the risk since there are many viable alternatives that require less work and pay better.
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