Have you ever been a sex worker, female or male? Or become close to one as a person, outside of what they do for a living? Moved in with one? Because I have known a fair few escorts & strippers of both sexes as acquaintances and friends (ftr I am not a buyer and never would be, it's against my morals).
Many escorts and mistresses and porn stars are extremely rough, or self-centered, and I guess it comes with dealing with men who may try to take advantage of them.
They often have very difficult, painful, dark and unenviable working and personal lives, mostly because their clients are usually seeking to buy sex for a reason, i.e. they are socially unpleasant at best, downright psychotic at worst. Many of these SWers also have to deal with a lot of
constant stalking and harassment, both on and offline. Many more still have unhealed trauma or systemic issues such as relative or actual poverty that put them into this line of work in the first place.
Hence the standoffishness, the 'rough/toughness' and survivalist attitude, strict rules for engagement, the quick cut-offs, the higher prices, the social screening. They're just trying to get by and make their lives less grim, for the most part, without becoming a statistic along the way.
There are even undiagnosed ASD SWers who push through the pain of forced contact because they need the money and can't do other types of work--imagine being put in that position yourself, having to work as a rentboy and entertain gross, creepy, amoral or old men for a living. Would you be a happy or generous or naive person, going through that?
But sadly, they don't care about you beyond receiving your cash.
Would you expect a Starbucks counter girl to endure over-friendliness from a punter, pretend to be their friend, go out of her way to give personal details or show skin or kiss up to a customer for the tiny bit of change in their pocket etc.? Would you judge her as a some kind of evil wench who is personally slighting you if she didn't? When you're just there to pick up a frappe real quick, she's just there to pick up a paycheque, and you both know that?
If you're buying sex, nudes, whatever, then you're just a regular customer like any other, not a friend, not a patient, and certainly not a date. These SWers aren't selling love & companionship or free therapy, you need other less transactional relationships for that.
If they seem to flex a lot on social media, invent a glamourous lifestyle persona or do what looks to you like grifting, it's because a) like most non-SWers they use socials as a calling card/shop window to get and screen more clients without soliciting on the actual physical street (a dangerous outdated method likely to get you assaulted rather than booked), and, b) because they sometimes need to accrue goods that they can use, sell or trade instead of taking liquid cash in hand (if people like you won't tip or CashApp a fair price, they have to get something out the work). It's pure pragmatism and a response to market force
Deposits are industry standard afaik, it's for both time management and also safeguarding reasons i.e. a digital paper trail.
This reaction doesn't surprise me, nor is it unreasonable. The cheapness of sex buyers is second-to-none, and it's only got worse in this age of free online porn. Almost everyone thinks they can get something--someone--for nothing. SWers have to be ten times as vigilant as the rest of us against scammers.
As for refunds? This isn't an ASOS. The buying and selling of sex is llegal and black market for a reason. There's not buyer protection, nor should there be when the seller is the one most at risk.
Tbh I've only ever met one SWer who differs from all this, and she was an already-wealthy trust fund baby who basically wanted more spending money than Daddy (a landowning aristo) would give her-she even used to go on about being 'cash poor', despite having more assets and financial security and family wealth than most people I've ever met. What's more she didn't want a 'boring' regular job, and it seemed she had a fet for being a callgirl (or being treated like one). She had an excellent education from the best schools, and plenty of prospects. She even had an official peerage/title, she was a Lady I believe. So she was just LARPing as a SWer to feel edgy or glamorous, and was probably using the work as a dating service to find her Xtian Grey or something (she would only take other very rich attractive people as clients). She had the luxury of picking or turning down clients at her leisure, and could have quit the lifestyle and the SW any day she wanted and it wouldn't have meant she starved or became homeless, unlike all the others I've known. She is a rare strange unique case, though. Idk if she still does SW at all, probably not. Not sure I'd even count her as a proper one, as it was all just cosplay and 'fun' for her.