Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Money

[Airwolfe]

Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Money: The Crazy Secrets of Internet Cam Girls

http://gizmodo.com/5941976/indentured-s ... girls-nsfw

Has there been a thread here on this Gizmodo.com article and I have just missed?

I see Mila Milan got a little bit of fame in the article.

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

It really generalises a lot huh

 

[Diana Blake]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I kind of want to beat my head on the desk after reading that. Especially since my picture is up there

 

[AllisonWilder]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I kind of want to beat my head on the desk after reading that. Especially since my picture is up there

There's something about this in the Models Only section, too. Your picture was the first thing I noticed, actually. :lol:

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I kind of want to beat my head on the desk after reading that. Especially since my picture is up there

There's something about this in the Models Only section, too. Your picture was the first thing I noticed, actually. :lol:

same here lol

 

[Shaun__]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

The basic premise of the cam girl game is a simple one: You pay a girl for her time, and in exchange, she'll take off her clothes, talk to you, play with herself (and others), or any combination thereof. When your money is up, so's your time—the two of you part ways until you've got the cash and willingness to go at it again.

I seem to have been doing this wrong. I hang around like an uninvited house guest myself. I am so embarrassed , why didn't anyone tell me?

 

[camstory]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

The basic premise of the cam girl game is a simple one: You pay a girl for her time, and in exchange, she'll take off her clothes, talk to you, play with herself (and others), or any combination thereof. When your money is up, so's your time—the two of you part ways until you've got the cash and willingness to go at it again.

I seem to have been doing this wrong. I hang around like an uninvited house guest myself. I am so embarrassed , why didn't anyone tell me?

:lol: That's funny. None of us wanted to say anything, you seemed to be having so much fun.

Yea, I caught that and couple other comments that didn't fit, or were as Jup has said, generalization. If he was going to lump all three sites together he might have briefly detailed the differences. He could have made up the extra WC by cutting some of those elaborate sentences.Right, you're a fine one to talk Vic

 

[mynameisbob84]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I skimmed. It seemed overly generalised and biased towards to the shadier goings on in the cam world, which is understandable. An article about a bunch of attractive girls logging onto MFC a few hours a night and making some money whilst - for the most part - enjoying themselves wouldn't make for a particularly riveting article.
The comments section though... bleurgh :?

 

[AmberCutie]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

This popped up last week. Lame article is lame. Some day there will be an article up on a popular mainstream site that makes people feel all warm and fuzzy about cam girls.

Some day.

Regardless of the sad stuff and criminal activity that everyone likes to focus on, there are still a LOT of girls who love their job and want to see it portrayed in a more positive light. But while cam girls are lending their words to journalists and blog writers who only publish the negative stuff, there won't be any progress made. We aren't doing any favors to the camming world and the adult industry in general.

And yes

I see Mila Milan got a little bit of fame in the article.

It looks like she got upward of 50,000 new Twitter followers since then, to whom she is still ranting and raving about girls who are on MFC who aren't earning their tokens legitimately. I suppose she has no reason to speak positively about MFC when she is gaining more fame discussing the underbelly of the cam world.

 

[UncleThursday]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I read it. I know Effy_ (AKA Anna) from some interaction on MFC, she is really hot and sweet. I obviously also know of Mila, but have never interacted with her.

But, the writer wrote this as far more of an opinion piece than a true journalistic article. He was really looking to hear horror stories, but couldn't get some of the girls who are in the position he wanted to talk to him.

But, I also know quite a few studio girls in Romania, and almost none of them don't seem to enjoy themselves when they're on cam. They never tell me of horror stories when we talk off of MFC, either. Yes, they have schedules, but the studios hired them with schedules in mind. But, except for maybe having to work extra hours in a week if they are out sick or so, they aren't forced to work ungodly hours. They get regular breaks, time to eat, etc. The rooms are clean and well lit. They're allowed to socialize with other girls, and some of them do so outside of work. There's dedicated tech support on site. Etc.

Ae there more disreputable "studios" out there? Obviously. But are they the norm? It doesn't appear so. Is it possible that many studios are Russian mafia (or other organized crime) owned? Always a possibility. But it doesn't automagically mean that they're being used as money laundering sites... it's just easy money for little work on the studio owners' parts. I mean, why launder money through MFC/Streammate/etc. when you aren't going to even get all of the money back? The site takes its cut, and then they also have to pay the model. There are far more profitable ways to launder money out there than using cam models.

But, I have to get to work.... so maybe I'll write more later.

 

[SatanJonez]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

The title of this article basically says it all: a piece written with no real perspective from the average cam girl's point of view, the sole purpose of which was to get page hits by showcasing a negativity the average person didn't know about. It's the same for a lot of the documentaries I've seen on porn, stripping and other sex work. No one wants to hear about the happy whore who goes to work every day feeling lucky to have the job she does because she enjoys it & it's lucrative. They want to hear about the strung out, desperate woman who drags herself to what society deems isn't even a "real" job so she can get high again. :roll:

 

[bob]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

Lame article is lame. Some day there will be an article up on a popular mainstream site that makes people feel all warm and fuzzy about cam girls.

as you say...someday...but it won't be anytime soon
i saw an afternoon talk show yesterday....one of the guests was a woman who was teaching the basics of pole dancing to kids...as exercise, physical fitness, and dance....it was a second part to her business, which included pole dancing as work in the sex industry.....

but she wasn't stupid, and there was no crossover.....which didn't matter one bit, as the stigma was a tangible presence in the audience....the best opinion any mom there could muster was "well, i guess it would be ok, if that's what she (her little princess) wanted to do".....the implication being that mom would never ever let it be something that her kid would ever want to do.

Regardless of the sad stuff and criminal activity that everyone likes to focus on, there are still a LOT of girls who love their job and want to see it portrayed in a more positive light. But while cam girls are lending their words to journalists and blog writers who only publish the negative stuff, there won't be any progress made. We aren't doing any favors to the camming world and the adult industry in general.

your point is well taken, and very well meaning.....but personally, i have to disagree....i don't think the article was lame, nor focused only on the negativity.....camming is extraordinarily personal, both from your side of the screen and from mine.....

and as individuals, we all have our stories of "let the buyer beware", as well as "be careful when you're working".....to my mind, the same article could be written from the posts on your forum, amber...there's success, happiness, empowerment, confusion, frustration, anger, and exploitation all over the place here....and that's just in part of the forum i can see :lol:

the point being for me that in order to come to "the warm and fuzzy" as the positive side of camming that we all, for the most part, have found for ourselves....it's important to realize that there is a dark underbelly to the biz

maybe i'm way off base here, the lone guy who was not content to sit back and enjoy camming as "porn with the benefits of live interaction", but i have to wonder if the difference between the nice guys and the angry and rude ones is not shaped somewhat by the kind of "generalized" tensions that article presents.....through its brief peeks into the lives of several different models

true warm and fuzzy has little meaning without knowing cold and hard, imo

:twocents-02cents:

 

[bob]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

The title of this article basically says it all: a piece written with no real perspective from the average cam girl's point of view, the sole purpose of which was to get page hits by showcasing a negativity the average person didn't know about. It's the same for a lot of the documentaries I've seen on porn, stripping and other sex work. No one wants to hear about the happy whore who goes to work every day feeling lucky to have the job she does because she enjoys it & it's lucrative. They want to hear about the strung out, desperate woman who drags herself to what society deems isn't even a "real" job so she can get high again. :roll:

there was certainly some of that...and it seemed to feed right into what the readers wanted to hear....the comments reminded me of the audience in that talk show i watch yesterday. :icon-cry:

 

[camstory]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I'm sure I would put up a few quotes, but I'm working from a touchscreen, ugh.

I was right in the boat with it being a lame piece, for expressing the negative as it did. I really do think Bob makes a good supporting argument for that expression though. That said, I still think it is a Lame article from a journalistic pov. I don't know if it was so much an editorial as it was sensationalized. As Bob82 pointed out, "that's understandable", yes, I guess it is. It is extremely unfortunate though, IMhO. No one seems to want straight journalism much anymore. It used it be exciting enough to know what you were getting was the truth, and nothing had to be sensationalized. The straight truth, seems to have become old news. :confusion-shrug:

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I know one Romanian model who has been with her studio 3+ years, and although she doesn't always enjoy the work she only has praise for the studio and how the girls are treated. Apparently it's one of the largest ones in Bucharest. The girls get holidays to Ibiza etc when they are the top performer of the month, aren't pressured to do anything they don't want.

 

[camstory]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

Off subject, but I would like to know MyNameIsBob changed his # from 82 to 84? Sorry Bob.

 

[mynameisbob84]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

Off subject, but I would like to know MyNameIsBob changed his # from 82 to 84? Sorry Bob.

You trippin, sir? It's been 84 ever since I joined this here board

 

[AmberCutie]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

Off subject, but I would like to know MyNameIsBob changed his # from 82 to 84? Sorry Bob.

You trippin, sir? It's been 84 ever since I joined this here board

Hah I wondered who bob82 was. :mrgreen:

 

[UncleThursday]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I see Mila Milan got a little bit of fame in the article.

It looks like she got upward of 50,000 new Twitter followers since then, to whom she is still ranting and raving about girls who are on MFC who aren't earning their tokens legitimately. I suppose she has no reason to speak positively about MFC when she is gaining more fame discussing the underbelly of the cam world.

It will help her sell her book she's apparently writing, according to the article.

Besides, I find it funny that anyone who has gotten one of the largest tips in the industry can complain about "girls not earning tokens legitimately" from camming. Because that's a LOT of tokens for a member to 1. have on hand at one time and 2. to buy in the first place.

My own account says:

You are currently limited to 10 purchases a day and a maximum of 200000 tokens that can be stored in your account at one time.

I can buy the 7575 package. To even reach my maximum of 200k stored, I would have to buy the 7575 package 26.4026403 times. So at 26 times, I would have 196950 in my account... but that is also $15,599.74 spent on MFC to have that. That's over half my base yearly income (not including overtime). That's a lot of money. I'm also sure the maximum tokens in my account will eventually go up, too.

So, the person who tipped that is either a massively rich bastard who could afford to spend ~$16k on a single tip, or the tokens were gained from not so legitimate ways (credit card fraud, etc.). Either one is just as equally plausible as the other, truth be told.

I know there are a few fairly wealthy members on MFC, I even talk to one fairly regularly, so it is entirely possible. But I also can pretty confidently say that most members would shit an entire brick house at spending ~$16k worth of tokens on a single tip, even if they saved up for it by buying some here and there.

So, without knowing which way that tip was paid for... wouldn't she have to look at herself as potentially not earning tokens legitimately? Just saying.

And, for the record, I do not know who tipped her, nor do I care. It's just something I thought of when re-skimming the article.

 

[camstory]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

Off subject, but I would like to know when MyNameIsBob changed his # from 82 to 84? Sorry Bob.

You trippin, sir? It's been 84 ever since I joined this here board

Hah I wondered who bob82 was. :mrgreen:

I was wondering the same thing. I think it's one of Vic's friends.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I seem to have been doing this wrong. I hang around like an uninvited house guest myself. I am so embarrassed , why didn't anyone tell me?

Because you're probably one of the COOL MFC members who contributes to the chat with good conversation. So models probably welcome you to their room whether you're with or without tokens.

 

[lurkylurk]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I know an EU model who left her studio after 2 years. I thought she would be overjoyed at keeping a larger share of her earnings, but in fact she said it was lonely working from home and missed the interaction with the other models.

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I see Mila Milan got a little bit of fame in the article.

It looks like she got upward of 50,000 new Twitter followers since then, to whom she is still ranting and raving about girls who are on MFC who aren't earning their tokens legitimately. I suppose she has no reason to speak positively about MFC when she is gaining more fame discussing the underbelly of the cam world.

It will help her sell her book she's apparently writing, according to the article.

Besides, I find it funny that anyone who has gotten one of the largest tips in the industry can complain about "girls not earning tokens legitimately" from camming. Because that's a LOT of tokens for a member to 1. have on hand at one time and 2. to buy in the first place.

My own account says:

You are currently limited to 10 purchases a day and a maximum of 200000 tokens that can be stored in your account at one time.

I can buy the 7575 package. To even reach my maximum of 200k stored, I would have to buy the 7575 package 26.4026403 times. So at 26 times, I would have 196950 in my account... but that is also $15,599.74 spent on MFC to have that. That's over half my base yearly income (not including overtime). That's a lot of money. I'm also sure the maximum tokens in my account will eventually go up, too.

So, the person who tipped that is either a massively rich bastard who could afford to spend ~$16k on a single tip, or the tokens were gained from not so legitimate ways (credit card fraud, etc.). Either one is just as equally plausible as the other, truth be told.

I know there are a few fairly wealthy members on MFC, I even talk to one fairly regularly, so it is entirely possible. But I also can pretty confidently say that most members would shit an entire brick house at spending ~$16k worth of tokens on a single tip, even if they saved up for it by buying some here and there.

So, without knowing which way that tip was paid for... wouldn't she have to look at herself as potentially not earning tokens legitimately? Just saying.

And, for the record, I do not know who tipped her, nor do I care. It's just something I thought of when re-skimming the article.

That tip was also the winning tip for a 'highest tip of the month wins' contest to vacation in Thailand at Mila's place, sleep there and all that might entail. So basically it was the last tip in the contest - all it had to do was beat all the others. It was tipped by the same guy who'd apparently won a previous contest to fly there and meet/sleep with her, which of course prompted many accusations of shenanigans.

Not commenting on whether it was legitimate or not because I have no idea, but I will point out that such a contest IS open to a massive amount of abuse. A person could collect the entire month's worth of entries then just make sure the final self-tip beats them all.

 

[ComicOzzie]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I know an EU model who left her studio after 2 years. I thought she would be overjoyed at keeping a larger share of her earnings, but in fact she said it was lonely working from home and missed the interaction with the other models.

I've also had independent models tell me that they miss the structured times when they were in a studio, and that they find way too many reasons NOT to go online now that they make that decision themselves.

 

[ComicOzzie]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I will never, ever enter a "highest tip" contest because there is no way I will ever win a highest tip contest.

:crybaby:

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I will never, ever enter a "highest tip" contest because there is no way I will ever win a highest tip contest.

:crybaby:

The first time I ever did a "Highest single tip gets a phone call" room topic, my highest tip was like 50 or 100 tokens, with very few people participating, I think.

If I ever do that again, I'm gonna specify that it must be at least a 3-digit tip to qualify...lol.

 

[AllisonWilder]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I will never, ever enter a "highest tip" contest because there is no way I will ever win a highest tip contest.

:crybaby:

I had a lot of members that thought like this so I did a largest quantity of tips in one night contest. It didn't matter if you tipped 1 token or 1000 tokens at a time. I added up the number of times someone tipped in that night and announced the winner the next day when I was cam. It came out to be a little over two-hundred 1 and 2 token tips from one person. It was a lot of fun and members that couldn't tip a lot enjoyed being able to actually participate in the game.

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

yeah the highest tip thing could only work if ALL the tips were not shown in chat, and the model didn't divulge (but then that's totally dodgy from a whole different angle). Doesn't matter so much if it's say, to win content or whatever but if it's a really big prize that is probably worth more than any single tip, all anyone has to do to win is not tip until the last day of the competition then beat the current leader by 1 token.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I mean, why launder money through MFC/Streammate/etc. when you aren't going to even get all of the money back? The site takes its cut, and then they also have to pay the model. There are far more profitable ways to launder money out there than using cam models.

I think the same as this. Also it doesn't make sense to me. Because to buy tokens you need a credit/debit card, pretty much meaning you need a legit bank account. Unless you fancy also going through bank account fraud. Then you'd buy the tokens on mfcs, completely traceable if the bank wanted to look it up, and you went and tipped said model a large amount. Well you've left a great big fat trail. Yes that model's money is now legit, but the trail will lead back to you, or will watch the model to see what she does with the money.
Personally I cannot see why something so risky would be worth losing 40%+ of your money, not even including what the model would take, when like you said, there are so many cheaper ways to launder money. Usually filtering it into a business that isn't always exact with stock checks.

The article is ridiculous though.

On one note though, although in ways I'd love the world to know about and accept my job, if articles painted the world of camming in its truer light I think a lot more girls would think "hey! I could do that" and then cam girls would make considerably less money, meaning the job would be worth less to us. So I guess really we should thank this guy, men are still going to come to us whether they think we're poor derelict women, or even total skanks, depending on how idiotic they are they'll work it out for themselves once they see the reality. But this way it keeps away some of the potential competition! (Not that I don't love the competition on mfcs, but I'd rather not have 500-1000 extra women online at the same time as me every night because suddenly camming is accepted, I think it'd definitely effect earnings)

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Mon

I never thought the credit card scam theory made sense either. It was also supposed to be a kind of money laundering - stolen credit cards used to buy tokens, which are then tipped, then the model passes them back? MFC would get every single one of those charged back, and would boot the model.