Houseboy.com: Advice to Weed out Spammers and Fakes

[michael]

I have limited new members that are NOT verfied with their photos to 5 messages per day. Yet, still they flock to sites like this and reek havock. Recently, the Sub/Master guys have been creating profiles and we delete them as fast as we can. But, what can we do on an admin level to rid them on the site permanently?

What if we went to 2 messsages per day for Free members who have not verified their profile? Or, if we limit their ability to receive 2 messages per day as well?

And, no winks for free members is another option.

Look, we make it easy for everyone to verify their photo. With that, they get 25 messages per day.

And, we also make it easy for anyone to be Silver or Gold on the site for free as well by participating.

http://www.houseboy.com/index.php?mdf=upgrade-member

So, I would appreciate a detailed discussion for you guys on the best way to weed out these fakes permanently!

[Guest FDancon]

This conversation may be enhanced by giving us some examples of the type of people you are seeking to weed out. There are the traditional scammers, usually hailing from a west african IP address, who use fake photos and try to snare people into sending them money.

What are the master/sub people you are trying to weed out? Can you describe them? This may lead to suggestions on better ways to detect and deter them...

What are some other kinds of people you are seeking to weed out?

[michael]

We want to weed out anyone who is looking to try to send members to other paid sites. This happens a lot but we get complaints daily. It use to be just the African nations but now, it is a big deal in the USA and other countries as well.

Basically, we want all members who are actually looking for a Houseboy type situation. We do not want anyone else!

[FCSO3300]

Mike;

I know when the internet first started, and yes, I am dating myself, there was talk of IP addresses being "coded" for personal use and business use. I don't know if that actually happens or not but perhaps you could investigate that manner to weed out some of it. If an IP address does not come from a personally coded IP address than it would not be eligible for membership. I don't know if that is logical or feasible or even possible anymore but thought it worth the suggestion.

I will work on some other ideas, as I replied to an add from here and received hate male from the person who had made up the profile stating that he was not really looking for someone "an employer" but was in fact, part of a group that was dedicated to finding "perverted people like me" and reporting us or getting rid of our kind. Perhaps a screening process and a legal statement at the signup process that has to be digitally signed stating that you are actually looking for a Houseboy type relationship would be something you want to consider. A digitally signed statement is legally binding and you could pursue those who sign it and then do something totally different on the site.

[AJinFL]

Employer or Houseboy, each of us must do our own investigating and policing when a contact has been made and there has been interest shown. We are adults. We already have adequate protections by use of the profile information and whatever additional information we can learn from the person we are communicating with. It is our decision making that allows for the problem of being trapped into a scam situation. Human nature will prove to be the culprit that allows for this to happen. If we think with our larger head rather than our smaller (pleasure) head when pursuing an arrangement with each other we may have a better outcome by choosing to not continue the pursuit with the person, or furthering our investigation when the information we have does not make sense to us, and by using good (or better) judgement when we have confidence that the situation may be right for us, to arrange face to face meetings prior to any commitment of moneys or travel. As an employer, I would choose to travel to my prospective houseboy to meet in person prior to having a contract or sending moneys if the houseboy is not local to my city. If he is local to my city then the meeting is a simple one. Too much oppression set up by the houseboy.com administration will certainly reduce the number of potential users that may have otherwise been good for the site. Other sites have done just that, made use of their sites unpleasant and oppressive and they have DIED. MHO is that the houseboy.com website is set just about right with the controls that are in place at the moment. Michael, I hope that you consider my words before making the kinds of changes being suggested above. The site you have now has developed into one of the best websites of it's kind.

[ryanbenz]

I have met a few people on here, and 3 of them have posted older pics, one of them said he was clean and drug free, was not the case, when I met him he was clearly strung out on something. I ended the date/meeting early and drive the 2 1/2 hours back home. Houseboy pictures should be updated often & verified.

[medexam]

_{As with any site of this nature you get good and bad .... if you use common sense it is amazing what works and does not}

[Cannon7]

A red flag for me as a houseboy, is when an employer has been a member of the site for several months and years, yet is still looking for a houseboy. It shouldnt take longer than 60 days to find a houseboy... if they are serious.

Employers should have to pay a premium for membership. If they can afford the lifestyle of having a houseboy, then they can afford a membership fee. A serious fee like $100 a month. Only a serious member will pay a premium fee. It makes no sense for an employer to be on here 4 years and never had a houseboy because that tells me, they are flakey, not serious or something is wrong with them and no one wants to be their houseboy.

[bbowlgt]

It would seem that encouraging users to respond or paticiapte to the forum is a good step. Also limiting account activity for a few days makes sense too. Most scammers want something that works pretty fast, so delay in access and so on should (one would think) make the site less attractive to them

[azudu2003]

I just wanted to comment on a couple of the suggestions here so far...

One is where an employer has been a member of the site for a while and it not taking more than 60 days to find a houseboy if they are serious. What about those of us who have actually found houseboys either through this site (or others), but may be looking for a new houseboy? Sometimes house boys don't work out and sometimes they move on to other things. Admittedly all but one that I have had worked out great, but I'm not going to close my account each time.

There is also the suggestion of having employers pay $100 a month for membership. Apparently it never occurred to this house boy that not everything revolves around money. In some instances there may be cause for paying a houseboy, and in other instances, room/board, meals, travel and other entertainment (all which costs a lot to the employer) may be sufficient, depending upon the expectations and whatever agreement the employer and houseboy work out. Honestly, I laugh when I read that a houseboy expects things like; a salary, his own car, a computer and of course his room/board, meals, etc... That sounds more like something that should be a full-time job, and I have yet to find a houseboy that works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week!

I do like the suggestion that maybe we, as adults, should police ourselves better. Maybe better warnings somehow to educate people that there are fakes, liars and scammers. It's a huge red flag to me when a potential houseboy wants me to send them money. They always have the excuse that they have a car and need money for gas. If I counter that I will buy them a plane ticket or even fly out to meet them where ever they are and help them drive to where I live (paying for expenses along the way), EVERY one of them will decline. I can't think of a legitimate reason why anyone would send someone money like that. If the houseboy is serious, he'll accept the plane ticket or bus ticket or even you going out to pick him up. Otherwise, he's just looking to scam you out of your money!

As for those ads directing people to other sites, they should be reported and deleted. Maybe a delay from the time someone signs up on the site, to the time they can communicate with anyone on the site, would deter some of this.

[michael]

I would love more participation in the forums and more experience sharing. That would be fantastic.

I also like the idea of limiting messages for a few days.

One thing that has worked well for us is the use of Verified Photos. That lets members know at least the photos are legit and it opens up more options for users.

Someone also mentioned that if a certain number of posters flag a person, that should be taken into account. To be honest, if only one person reports a profile we start to verify it authenticity. But, we need members to report this more often. If you get a PM sending you to a pay site, report the profile and include the text of the PM for us. Or, if you feel somene is a fake, report the profile and give us your rationale.

We take every reported profile seriously and we do not mind spending a great deal of time verifing them.

We have banned IP's in the past but it doesn't work well as most get around that pretty easily. We even banned one entire country for many years. LOL But, that also didn't last.

We do appreciate all our members and we do appreicate your support and participation. PLEASE continue to participate, post, report and interact!

Also, please continue to post more suggestions and comments as we will continually work on this for you!

[CreatingLife]

Suggestions:

(1) Houseboys must have a public profile (Facebook, twitter, etc.) to verify that they are real.

(2) Must have a credit card verification to authentic "legal name"

(3) Must have an employer verify them (employer has to have met them in person or by phone and has verified they have real motives for being a houseboy.)

[EuroCousin]

I was lucky, l guess, I joined the site and a week or two later a local recommendation came my way and I was able to employ a very good houseboi who satisfies me. However, he is at college and only has a year (currently) until he completes his degree. He wants to travel and move somewhere warmer (Indianapolis is way too cold for his latin blood) and when he is ready I am happy to send him off into the big wide world. He can always count on my support however.

So, do I stay a member and keep abreast of the current boiz looking ... or is that too creepy?

[daddy1969]

We are looking for a houseboy. But all the boys we find are flakes and only looking for a sugar daddy.

[skylazar]

The general consensus is that houseboys are fakes or timewasters but as a houseboy who doesnt get a lot of interests I can honestly say that the three people who have decided to contact me all turned out to be timewasters. They keep you hanging on or make arrangements and then stop contact even after one message.

The last employer who talked to me is one of the top rated employers here. He approached me and wanted to talk. When i replied I was told to get a skype account. I dont have skpe sp i gave him an email address. I then got called a timewaster and a fake !!!!!

If employers want a real houseboy they should try and be more empathetic. Most of us are not asking for money or decietful !!!!

[hotitalianboi]

Hi everybody and a great topic to address. However, I will say upfront that is a very tough job to weed out the bad guys on websites as we all already know. I guess for starters, I think it would be ideal to have a log of all the IP Addresses so that if you do kick someone off of here for being a player or spammer, you will know when he tries to come back. Another thing that troubles me is that every time I go into the chatroom, I never see anybody in there and it makes you wonder right off the bat if anyone on here is even real. I wish I knew why people of the gay and bi community lack so many communications skills. It seems like nobody wants to meet or talk to anyone and is very frustrating. I wish I had more input and advice but wish this site the very best of luck achieving that.

[boyfor2dads]

A red flag for me as a houseboy, is when an employer has been a member of the site for several months and years, yet is still looking for a houseboy. It shouldnt take longer than 60 days to find a houseboy... if they are serious.

Employers should have to pay a premium for membership. If they can afford the lifestyle of having a houseboy, then they can afford a membership fee. A serious fee like $100 a month. Only a serious member will pay a premium fee. It makes no sense for an employer to be on here 4 years and never had a houseboy because that tells me, they are flakey, not serious or something is wrong with them and no one wants to be their houseboy.

I have been a member on house boys for years and I take offence to your statement. We are a paid member and will continue to be a paid member. We have hired 3 boys from this sight and 2 turned out to be shit but one we loved and still do. a lot of the houseboys on here are looking for sex and or sugar daddy. See my husband and I don't fuck the help maybe that's why we are different. We really are looking for guys to be part of our family. Maybe houseboys should pay to be on here. Then only the ones truly looking for a job would pay to be a member.

[BryanR]

I have tried this site for a short period of time now and the suggestions the webmaster is posing will likely just cause the site to become so cumbersome to use that it simply becomes obsolete. If one looks at other social networking sites such as adam4adam or okcupid they do not put ridiculous restrictions on members as it is up to the people meeting on the site to handle those tasks. It seems odd that this site where people are deemed "employers" and the other party "houseboys" has such enourmous problems compared to other social media sites.

After setting up a profile and recieving over 100 emails from "employers" it is apparent that what these people are seeking is not the norm and is more a very specialized aspect of overall gay culture. It is likely the actual number of people 18-25 approximately that are truly seeking to live with a 45, 50, or 65 year old gay man or gay couple is so rare that it creates paranoia in the "employer" also known as the older gay man because he himself knows that what he is seeking is so rare it could be considered unrealistic. Thats where the people who have had profiles on sites such as these for 5-8 years or longer come in. What they are seeking and what is reality are simply not connecting. The whole concept of "fakes" and "scammers" must operate in that the older gay man who is in that terrible trap of only being able to find fulfillment with someone more than half his age is in a extremely vulnerable position to be targeted for scams because of his desperation to find fulfillment in something that is either so rare that he must search for years or simply does not exist but he holds out hope. The couples who want someone to live with them, I can't really comment on them other than its simply them living out a father/son or mentor scenerio or something more sexualized. When the layers of this employer/houseboy onion are peeled away it seems to really come down to one thing: A older gay man or couple who wishes to have sex with a 18-25 year old guy under the auspices of being a domestic helper. If you compare the role of domestic helper to other people who fill that role such as hispanic women they are not showered with vacations and trips to exotic desinations or use of their lamborghini etc. It comes down to the desire of the older gay man trapped in that mentality that he can only find fulfillment with someone half his age. For the couples, it may be more complex or simply they want a young gay guy to have sex with after years of being together.

After all those thoughts it simply appears that yes these older gay men are in vulnerable positions since they are seeking something very unrealistic. I tried this site to see what type of people are on here and it seems as if it is a trap for the extremely paranoid older gay man and drug abusing younger gay guys and I don't see much coming out of it other than the webmaster killing his own site by making people "verify" themselves in 1,000 different ways. There are plenty of other sites to meet people and it almost seems as if he is bent on killing his own site. A complete re-vamp of how people approach what they are searching for and losing the paranoid mentality would likely save many members a lot of heartache and wasted hours searching for something that likely will never come to be.

[Guest Kestrelsf]

I've found a few houseboys from this site and they have worked out pretty well, so here's my two cents:

First and foremost, I've found that you shouldn't expect sex to be part of the equation. If that's what you are wanting or expecting it's most likely gonna turn out badly. You've got someone staying at your place that might have no where else to go or no way to feed themselves. They are most likely in a desperate situation and if they had the means to pay their own rent or had family to help they wouldn't be looking to be a houseboy. Don't put him in the situation of feeling unsafe by even suggesting it's something on your mind. Also, if what you are truly wanting is someone to keep up the house, there may be little incentive to clean up if someone thinks they ar being kept around for sex. If sex is what you are expecting, then better to go look for someone explicitly wanting a sugar daddy and stop the pretense.

To that end, one issue I have (and I've heard from friends who have used this site to find a houseboy) is that the profile pages are overly sexualized. When you look at a profile, the first thing you see is the "loads in mouth / loads in ass" with porn pics. What sort of expectations are we setting here from the start? Folks also don't like that when you set up a profile most of the questions want to know about dick size and sexual positions etc. Another complaint I have is I've wanted to upload pictures of the room I have here, the house, the view of the city, pics of the group of roommates that live at the house, etc. These are all things I'd imagine a potential houseboy would like to see. But the only thing we're allowed to show is a picture of ourselves. Again, setting the expectation that all he really would care about is "would I do" the employer. In my situation I think he'd be at least as interested in what his room looks like.

As long as the site is geared towards sex being expected, don't be shocked that it attracts sketchy people. So here's my advice:

1- get rid of the "takes load in ass / mouth" graphic on the top of profiles. Super tacky.

2- allow pictures of folks houses, yards, households, room the houseboy will be living.

3- allow folks to opt out of the sex questions

[BryanR]

I agree with Kestrelsf. When setting up a profile if you do not check all the boxes related to sex you simply can't even set up a profile! Then, the first thing that someone sees when opening your profile is whether you "take loads in the mouth" and "loads in the ass". Who on earth made that up? The webmaster Michael? If people want to be taken seriously that this is a legitimate endeavor (being a "employer" or "houseboy) all that needs to go. Its utterly ridiculous and basically says the whole purpose of the site is sex under the cloak of being a legitimate "employment" site. I also agree with the other aspects of his post including posting pictures of the living arrangement. Otherwise its really just a joke site that targets older gay men who are lonely or bored in their relationships or younger gay men who are in desperate situations and then of course the Nigerian men and women who know lonely older gay men are about as vulnerable of a group with cash as you can find.

[michael]

Thanks guys for all the support and advice. We are working on a few things that will help with this.

[somerguy123]

New to this site, but glad I found it, as it seems way better than the other ones.

Regarding the suggestion to require houseboys to link to facebook, etc; that would be hard on someone like me who isn't trying to broadcast to *family* that they are a houseboy now.

Michael - you mentioned people could become silver members by just participating, how does that work?

[shakota]

there are other ones? I know of only one other houseboy site and it's horrible. It's unfortunate but this one seems to be dying, at that :-(

[michael]

New to this site, but glad I found it, as it seems way better than the other ones.

Regarding the suggestion to require houseboys to link to facebook, etc; that would be hard on someone like me who isn't trying to broadcast to *family* that they are a houseboy now.

Michael - you mentioned people could become silver members by just participating, how does that work?

You can be upgraded automatically by participating. Click Upgrade Membership to see the options.

Silver Upgrade

Silver Upgrade via our merchant processors for 7.95 or Have a Verified Profile and 5 Approved Videos and 5 Approved Photos.

Gold Upgrade

Gold Upgrade via our merchant processors for 14.95 or Have a Verified Profile and 25 Approved Videos and 25 Approved Photos.

[blueskyskip]

A couple of thoughts to add to this thread...

Employers may well be genuine and have an active profile for more than 12 months. Here in Europe we had 2 great US houseboys, but they can't stay here long due to silly visa issues. One will be back this Summer. I don't think it's a crime to take some time to find the perfect houseboy.

On fakes: employers (me included) should try to forget their dicks when searching. Try using google image search on photos - fake profiles immediately show up as porn star images copied from the net. It's not that difficult to spot. And if they make a point of being HONEST (often in caps) then <the lady doth protest too much methinks> (with apologies to Shakespeare).

But on the positive side, there are some great genuine houseboys out there and this site does provide a very valuable service to both employers and houseboys, who both benefit from a good match.