I'm not so sure that using an agency is a step up, there are for more quality indies out there than there are agencies. The verification sites are a good idea for anyone new. P411 lets their providers indicate if they are newbie friendly which means lighter screening. Check them out and maybe you can get some references from them.
If any of the bp girls you have seen are members of TER, ask if they will give you a whitelist referral. Also, you could offer to review them here. Read the self help center, start posting on your regional board as well to get yourself known. SwimHi guys, hope you can help me.
I'm new to this and so far only seen a few girls from Backpage.com. I've done pretty good selecting them as I plan to see 2 of them again, but I'd like to step to an agency. I've contacted a few and I'm running into 2 problems.
1. They want references from other agencies, which of course I don't have yet.
2. I am semi-retired / self-employed, so I cannot provide a company name/number for them.
Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated
The short answer is: sign up with a screening service such as Datecheck or P411. The world of providers will open up to you. Your desired agencies should accept those screening services. If they still require another agency referral, then you may have to take a trip and visit an agency in another city/state. There are reasons why it's presently difficult to connect with an agency in your area, so you could also try to wait a couple months and try again.
I'm not so sure that using an agency is a step up, there are for more quality indies out there than there are agencies. The verification sites are a good idea for anyone new. P411 lets their providers indicate if they are newbie friendly which means lighter screening. Check them out and maybe you can get some references from them.
If any of the bp girls you have seen are members of TER, ask if they will give you a whitelist referral. Also, you could offer to review them here.
Read the self help center, start posting on your regional board as well to get yourself known.
Swim
Many well reviewed gals use BP, so that alone is not a black mark with many gals. They just apply the same rules to these clients as clients from other sources, and have not had much of a problem.
In any case, if you write to a gal and are respectful and state your case, many gals will see you, but you do have to be liberal with whatever personal information they ask for.
the screening sounds invasive but again if your not screened be leery.