Before the meeting
The messages do the work, not vigilance on the night. If it has been established in advance how much, for how long, where and what that covers, there is very little left to go wrong in person.
What you are checking is not whether the listing is real in the abstract, but one narrow thing: whether the person replying is the person who runs it. How to tell is set out in how to read a listing and avoid being scammed.
- Agree in advance and in words, not by implication.
- The place is chosen by you or by her, never by a third person.
- Nobody sends an advance transfer to someone they have not met. Not a small one, not one to hold the time.
- If the conversation is being hurried, that is a reason to slow down rather than speed up.
- Tell someone where you are and until roughly when. Thirty seconds and one message.
Money and documents
Cash, at the start of the meeting, once, without being counted in front of her. That is both good manners and practical: a conversation about money that continues after the meeting has begun spoils the rest of it.
Do not carry large sums beyond what was agreed, and leave your passport in the hotel safe. Not out of distrust of anyone, but because there is no reason to have it with you: the amount is known in advance, and a lost passport in a foreign country is a week of your trip.
What you do not share
Nothing that gives access to anything: your employer with an address, document numbers, photographs of your passport, logins to anything at all. A first name and a number to reach you is enough on both sides.
A request for a photograph of your passport for verification is never justified in either direction. On this site it cannot arise in principle: identity is confirmed to us and not to each other, and the result is visible as a badge. What that badge covers is explained in what the verified badge means.
Alcohol
The most underrated factor by some distance. Almost every story about an evening going wrong begins with one of the two having drunk before the meeting rather than during it.
The sensible rule is simple: nothing beforehand, and during the meeting no more than leaves you able to make decisions. That applies equally to both sides. Do not drink anything that was not poured in front of you, and do not leave your glass unattended.
Either of you can leave
This is the central point and it often goes unsaid. Both you and she can end the meeting at any moment, without explanation, and that is not a dispute about terms. Paid time does not turn an arrangement into an obligation to do anything at all.
The same principle runs the other way: anything not agreed in advance is not part of the arrangement, and insisting on it in person will not work. What is expected and what is not is covered in etiquette.
If something goes wrong
The most effective response is not to argue it out on the spot. The meeting ends, and anything further is sorted out at a distance. The general emergency number in Armenia is 911, and it is worth knowing simply because you are in an unfamiliar country.
If the problem is a listing on this site, whether that is borrowed photographs, a middleman or terms being changed, tell us. Every listing has a report button and moderation reads those reports; a listing behaving that way is easier to remove than to explain. You can also reach us through the questions and answers page.