DateableShould you give a match your address so they can send a gift?
No. Collect the gift on a date, or use a parcel locker or post office pick-up. A request for your address is a red flag in the sugar baby scam.
No, not before you have met and trust them. Collect the gift on a date, or use a parcel locker or post office pick-up. WA ScamNet lists a request for your home address as a red flag in the sugar baby scam 1, and an honest match loses nothing by handing the gift over in person.
Asking for your address is a red flag
In the sugar baby scam, someone poses as a generous partner and offers to pay your bills or debts. The red flags WA ScamNet lists are requests for your banking details, home address or phone number, offers to pay off debts, pressure to move off the dating platform, and requests for intimate photos 1. A gift that needs your address sits right in that list.
The gift may be real. It does not change what you have handed over. Your address tells a stranger where you sleep, and you cannot take it back if the match turns out to be unsafe or you decide not to meet.
Why it matters that a stranger knows where you live
Before you meet, keep your address, date of birth, workplace, family names and regular places to yourself 2. That gives you time to learn, in conversation and then in person, whether this person is who they say they are before they know how to find you.
A match who insists on posting something before you have met may be impatient, or may be building a sense that you owe them. Either way, the answer is the same: a gift can wait for a date.
Three ways to collect a gift instead
- Collect it on a date. Suggest you meet for coffee or a meal. If the match insists on sending a gift before meeting, suggest they bring it to the date instead. A real match will be fine with that. If they refuse, you have your answer about their intentions.
- Use a parcel locker. Australia Post runs parcel lockers, many in shopping centres and stations. You get a locker address that is not your home, and you collect on your schedule.
- Use post office pick-up. Have it sent to a post office for collection instead of your door. Pick one that is not your nearest if you want more distance.
Gifts that need no address
If a match wants to do something kind before you meet, plenty of gestures need nothing from you but a yes:
- An e-gift voucher sent to an email address you keep only for dating, never your work or main one.
- Paying for the first date, booked by them at a place you both chose.
- A book, a bottle or flowers brought to the date itself.
Each of those keeps your home, your bank details and your full name out of it. If the match rejects every option and only a delivery to your door will do, the gift was never the point.
What to say if they push back
Say it once, warmly, and offer the alternative in the same breath:
That's lovely of you. I don't give my address out before we've met, so could you bring it when we catch up? If it has to be posted, I can give you a parcel locker.
A real match says "of course" and moves on. If they argue, insist the gift only works at your home, or go cold, stop replying and report the profile. You have learned what the gift was for.
What comes after the address in the scam
In the version WA ScamNet describes, the scammer offers to pay your bills, then asks you for a small payment first as "proof of loyalty", or for fees and other costs, and disappears once you pay 1. In another, they deposit a large sum, claim it was a mistake, and ask you to send it back as gift card codes. The deposit came from fraudulent accounts, so it vanishes and you are left in debt 1.
A match who is generous before you meet should never need anything from you in return: not money, not codes, not your bank login. The moment they do, it is a scam. More on the pattern in how to spot a scam.
If you have already given your address
Do not panic, and do not send anything they ask for. If money you did not expect arrives in your account, leave it there and do not send it back yourself. Contact your bank straight away: it may not recover money you have lost, but it can block access to compromised accounts 1.
Then report and block the profile, and keep screenshots of the messages. If you feel unsafe at home, tell someone you trust and call police; in an emergency in Australia, call 000. The privacy guide covers what else to lock down, and the scams section has more on how these requests unfold.
Sources
- WA ScamNet (Government of Western Australia, Consumer Protection) (2026). Sugar baby scam.
- Sexual Assault Resource Centre, North Metropolitan Health Service (Government of Western Australia) (2021). Safe online dating.
