My current home phone number previously belonged to someone who was an escort. Of sorts. I think you catch my drift.
Have I told you this before? I’m not sure. (I just attempted to look through my archives. Um yeah – they aren’t so organized AND I haven’t been posting on any sort of regular basis, so I bailed on that. That’s how I roll.) On the off chance that I haven’t – which is likely – let me give you some background info.
We had our phone service through an ISP for quite awhile. The service wasn’t so great – not sure if it was my modem or what, but regardless we were done with it, and decided to move our phone back to our cable provider. Doing this required that we get a new phone number. Fine, fine. Well, not so fine, as Elaine FREAKED out. “I love our old phone number.” Just like she loves TVs. But that’s the way it had to be, so we moved on. Gave out the new number, things were working great, life was swell.
Then we started getting phone calls at 1 or 2 AM. Now I don’t know about you, but when the phone rings at that time of night, I assume its some sort of emergency and I run for it. Our phone is down the hall (because it has to be by the modem and why would I get another one for my room that would be absurd), so I’d make a run for it. I’d answer it, to be accosted with, “yeah, I saw your ad.” What? “Wrong number,” I’d say and hang up. If Mike happened to answer it? They just hung up. And then they would call again. And again. And again.
I had strange messages on our voicemail. “I wanted to use your services. I saw your ad.” What in the world, I wondered. And so I googled my phone number.
Bad idea.
The first six webpages listed were adult escort type pages. They had my phone number and some other girl’s name, and um, she’s available for a good time. I screamed out loud. And then I got ticked. These men are calling for this service, and when they get a voicemail stating they’ve reached the BLAH BLAH fam-i-ly, they leave a message? Ballsy. Some went as far as to leave their hotel room numbers. Oy vey.
And so I contacted the websites that I could – if it required me to join, then no, I did not contact them – and asked them to pull the ad as that is not that girl’s phone number. Some made it difficult, but most helped. And the calls tapered. Sure, we’d get an occasional phone call, I’d say wrong number, and they’d quit calling.
At this point, I’d like to make you aware of what began going through my mind.
- Who knew there was such a lucrative escort industry in my area?
- Prostitution is still illegal, is it not?
- This girl must not be making any money because she isn’t getting her phone calls. On her ad, this is the only way to contact her.
- OMG, I seriously need to put parental controls on my internet, I would NOT want my children to see these sites.
- This girl is someone’s child. Ugh. Makes me sick.
- Also? She doesn’t charge much compared to other ads on the site. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
- Could I send the cops to the hotel rooms that are left on my answering machine? That could be funny.
- Can I lecture the men calling about using escort services? Never mind, 1 AM is too early/late to be lecturing anyone.
- Did these people save her phone number in their cell phones? And under what type of contact name?
Now? Now, the phone calls are starting back up. Most of her ads haven’t been updated since 2011, but there’s a new one for 2013. So I spent last night bookmarking them on Mike’s computer so that I can begin contacting the sites again, and ask them to take down the ad. Mike says it’s just another reason to be done with our home phone. But it took the kids this long to memorize our number, and now their friends know it. It’s so very frustrating, regardless. The cable company should have offered up the info that this phone number was previously used for an illegal business. That information would have been helpful.
Sigh.
