Newbie here. Booked a provider on tour in Chicago - she seems to normally be based in NY. Same day booking, deposit agreed via Crypto - took a few backwards and forwards to organise for currency and receiving network etc but she confirmed deposit was received.

 Booking was confirmed for 10pm, she emailed an hour before to say she was waiting for her Uber and could I send the rest via crypto as it takes a few minutes to clear - I replied and said I have cash for the rest. No response. No show at 10pm, sent one polite email and one text, no response.  

She is reviewed very positively here on TER - hence the booking. Totally baffled and it appears she's run off with 450 bucks. Any ideas apart from leaving a review of what happened?

...and you should not have booked someone that requires such an exorbitant deposit, particularly in crypto!  

A search on these boards on deposits would have revealed as much.

Stuff like this ruins business for the legit girls that ask for a deposit, unfortunately.  

You may have to charge it to lesson learned, unfortunately. As for leavijng a negative review, that is something you should think about. At the very least, it will get a response from her and you may get your money back.  

Assuming she is not a complete psychopath and doesn't care about reviews on here.

As she was reviewed here and posted her TER number at the top of her X account I assumed she was trustworthy - lesson learned for sure!

Will take you suggestion and write a review. Was just all very odd behaviour.

Sucks and definitely deposits are a problem area. I would say as a newbie stay away entirely as you're still learning the craft of finding quality and reading the tea leaves of the ads and reviews. I don't pay deposits but also am one of the "agency" type mongers here -- meaning I seldom look for or see independent providers. Few if any agencies ask for deposits.

By all means write the review but also check that everything is lining up -- there are cases where a good provider's profile is hijacked by some scammer so cross referencing the profile info with the various ads and online info you're looking at -- like phone numbers or email address and whatnot. It's also a good idea to check with some of the reviewers directly who wrote recent reviews to see if they were getting the same requests.