How to "Careful" Regarding Payment?

Ladies and Gentlemen, what do you require to trust the person on the other side an the exchange before meeting them?
What are you willing to reveal to prove that you're legitimately interested in a fair exchange?

I signed up for Tinder and discovered that many profiles stated they were massage therapists and pointed to SnapChat accounts.
These accounts would also advertise massage services and often lead to a message from the provider.

A provider contacted me and offered her services, stated her rates and said that she would require the cost of the session up-front via PayPal due to a history of flakey clients not showing up.

I've provided deposits before, via PayPal, but only to providers with reviews here (or OH2) and only when asking for a partial payment. When I offered this, she refused saying I might not pay her what was owed after the massage. I said I'd pay before the massage. I said I'd also feel a lot better if she sent me a clip-Snap with her saying "Hi <myname>, this is me, I'm real". She replied with a still shot that said "up to you". She said that with 1.5k followers on Instagram... all "happy customers" that I should feel just fine about paying her up front.

As far as I could tell, she had no Twitter, no website, no slixa, no adultsearch ad, no tryst, no skip the games, no reviews, no presence beyond Tinder, Snap and Instagram that I could find and she wasn't offering anything else, just the requirement that I PayPal her the entire cost of session in advance.

I said I would pass, and I thanked her for her time.

Was I being paranoid? Wouldn't it be easy to catfish a Tinder, SnapChat and Instagram and demand payment up front and disappear?
Or are the safeties in place on PayPal that would discourage any scammer from doing that?

To be clear: I didn't think that I had to worry about a legitimate provider ghosting me on a deposit. I think it's silly to think that a person with a reputation and a business to run would just walk away from a potential recurring client for a few hundred bucks.
What did worry me was that I had no way to know beyond a reasonable doubt that this was a legitimate provider.

Anyway, I would appreciate your insights. Thank you.

I always pay after I've put my pants back on and tucked in my shirt. Usually pull out my wallet as I sit down to put my shoes on.

I have never once been screwed over that way.

PP don't take to nicely to those that use their services for Hobbying. You could always let them know what she's up to if you wanted to be throw a wrench into her scheming. They'll freeze her account, take any $$$ in it and possibly affect her CC/bank account.

PP don't take to nicely to those that use their services for Hobbying. You could always let them know what she's up to if you wanted to be throw a wrench into her scheming. They'll freeze her account, take any $$$ in it and possibly affect her CC/bank account. Originally Posted by Precious_b

Ah, so you're saying that because she still HAS a PayPal account, it's likely that she's not scamming people because they'd have reported her and gotten her account shut down? That's a good point.