When Nikki Saryan called one of her former sugar daddies in March, she wanted to talk about money , just not in the way he expected. Though there was a time when she pulled in $20,000 a month and was treated to first-class trips to New York City, Saryan now needed investment advice .

Specifically, Saryan wanted to know what stocks to buy, “like where exactly I should safely put my money or if I should even put it in the stock market at all,” she tells WIRED. Instead, her sugar daddy, a finance guy in his late sixties, suggested a slow-growing, low-risk investment account with Charles Schwab that would be a safer bet than Wall Street.…