Understanding how traffickers entrap and exploit young girls and women has become crucial to correctly identifying sex trafficking. Research shows that pimps use recruitment techniques of seduction, housing assistance, drugs, and emotional support as well as physical violence, debt bondage, and psychological manipulation to entrap women into commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). This pilot study posits that these seemingly dichotomous methods represent two temporal occurrences; pimps use superficially positive offers to lure young girls and women into a relationship via grooming tactics, then shift the relationship into a sexually exploitive one via recruitment tactics. This study aimed to explore this temporal sequence a two prong process termed “predatory helpfulness.” Data for this preliminary study examined coercive control tactics, and trauma-coerced attachment in sex trafficking survivors. These findings help identify undetected coercive behaviors on the part of the pimp and inform criminal justice interventions and policy. Furthermore, understanding predatory helpfulness will shift the focus to the perpetrators’ behaviors, moving us toward a community that embraces and supports the victims impacted by CSE. A 12 Question Predatory Helpfulness Screener is proposed as a tool for legal actors and providers. The 12 question screening tool is also very useful in cases of domestic violence helping identify elements of coercive control and co-occurring human trafficking in domestic violence relationships.