Two men in Illinois thought they were building something real—if not love, at least intimacy. The messages from their favorite creators on OnlyFans felt flirty, tender, sometimes even confessional. Until they realized they weren’t talking to the models at all.
They were talking to “chatters,” which are paid stand-ins hired to impersonate creators, churn out DMs, and upsell fantasies at scale.
Now, those men, M. Brunner and J. Fry, are suing OnlyFans’ parent companies in a proposed class action, accusing the billion-dollar platform of deceptively advertising the nature of its communications features. The case could have been a landmark fight over authenticity in digital sex work. But before the ink dried on their complaint, a federal judge in Illinois tossed them a curveball: if they want to litigate, they’ll need to take their heartbreak to England.
Why England? Fenix International Ltd., the London-based company behind OnlyFans, had slipped a forum selection clause into its terms of service: all disputes must be brought in English courts.
And the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois upheld the clause. The subscribers’ case, the judge ruled, “is not the kind of rare or unusual case” where U.S. courts can override the agreement. Translation: if Brunner and Fry want justice, they’ll need passports, deep pockets, and the patience to wade through the English legal system.
In the meantime, OnlyFans shrugs. The company has repeatedly emphasized that creators are free to hire whoever they want to manage their accounts, and that chatters “do not work on behalf of OnlyFans.” In other words, if you’re mad about being ghosted by a stranger pretending to be your favorite model, take it up with the model—or take it to London.
The lawsuit details a familiar pattern for anyone who’s dipped a toe into the adult subscription world. Brunner and Fry say they believed they were developing personal relationships with creators. In reality, they were engaging with outsourced chatter teams—ghostwriters of desire who send flirty lines, suggest custom content, and even script “personalized” videos.
“It’s a paradigm case of a deceptive business practice,” said Brian Berkey, a professor of ethics at Wharton. “If you’re telling customers they’re getting one thing but delivering something else, that’s deception, plain and simple.”
Fry noticed inconsistencies—wrong details, repeated mistakes, an eerie sameness in responses. Brunner did the math: no human with hundreds of thousands of fans could possibly sustain the illusion of intimacy solo. The jig was up.
The case highlights the surreal space OnlyFans occupies in the modern economy. It sells intimacy at scale but shields itself with corporate fine print. The platform thrives on the tension between authenticity and performance, while its terms of service make sure the fallout doesn’t land too close to home.
For Brunner and Fry, the injury isn’t just financial—it’s emotional. They say they were tricked into pouring out secrets, affections, and money under false pretenses. But for the courts, hurt feelings don’t travel far. In this case, they’ll have to cross the Atlantic.
On OnlyFans, the fantasy may be global, but so is the fine print.