“I went on Facebook to see if he would go the extent of meeting up with me. He did… but I never went.”
Savanna Harrison, 27, is a professional “checker”, using social media to expose cheating partners after being cheated on herself.
She wanted to help other women avoid the same heartbreak she felt, so she started working for a company called Lazo, which describes itself as a “tool designed to see intentions and let go of toxic relationships”.
Now, she gets paid to run dozens of loyalty tests a month on people suspected of cheating on their partners.
“I’ve seen some comments saying its messed up,” she said – but she doesn’t feel bad about what she’s doing.
“If you can’t be loyal, then you shouldn’t be in that relationship.”
The loyalty test
Once she accepts a “mission”, Savanna messages her client’s partner, following tips and instructions from the suspicious client.
It’s usually women asking her to test their boyfriends.
“She’ll give me details of where she wants me to go with a conversation,” said Savanna, talking to me from Corona, California, where she also works as a lash technician doing eyelash extensions.
She’ll find out where the boyfriend hangs out and start up a conversation, saying she’s seen him in his favourite bar, or pretending to accidentally send him direct messages and photos.
“Either way, I will flood into his [direct messages] and say something to see if he’ll reciprocate.”
Throughout the process, Savanna is updating her client, sending them screenshots of any conversations between her and the boyfriend.
A loyalty test can last around five days, with checkers like Savanna going as far as arranging dates with the target that they won’t turn up to.
In a recent test, Savanna was asked to “set up a date… all the way until going there”.
She was then told to cancel on him so his girlfriend could show up instead.
‘It would be much better to talk’
According to one relationship expert, a loyalty test is not a healthy way to build trust in your relationship.
“It would be much better to talk about why they feel insecure in the relationship,” said Marian O’Connor, consultant couple and psychosexual therapist at Tavistock Relationships.
“It’s about saying: ‘There’s something wrong with us, what’s happening?’ That is the important thing, not to catch them out.”
She also advises thinking about why you don’t trust your partner and whether there is something deeper going on.
“Is this the experience you’ve had in all relationships? Is this lack of trust something that is from childhood, or is it in this particular relationship?”
The company running the loyalty tests, Lazo, says they’re not trying to catch people out.
“There might be this misconception that we’re here to entrap people,” says Ashlyn Nakasu, community manager at Lazo.
“That really is not the case.”
File pic: iStock
She says all the company is doing is helping people confirm what they already suspect – that their relationship is ending.
“[Often] they just need that proof, that final kick in the butt to let them know: ‘This is the wrong person for you’,” she said.
“We always tell people the best first choice is to communicate with your partner. And if communication fails to exist, then you can try to have a loyalty test if you truly believe that something is wrong.”
So how much does it cost?
Tests usually cost between $50 to $80 (£37.50 to £60) but the price ranges from checker to checker, with some charging over $100 (£75) for their services.
“I don’t care about the money,” says Savanna. “It’s more about helping other girls because I’ve been there.”
Lazo only has one full-time checker, who is making around $3,000 a month doing loyalty tests, but there are 350-400 part-time checkers like Savanna on their books.
They’re a new company – Lazo launched fully in January – but loyalty tests aren’t a new concept.
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The hashtag “loyalty test” already had millions of views on TikTok before Lazo launched, with suspicious partners often finding strangers on the internet and asking them to test their partners.
Lazo, says Ms Nakasu, just created “a database of people that are willing to help, who know exactly what to do and know exactly what people are asking for”.
