Backpage.com - umm. What?

[abtenney419 13]

Funny story.

About a month ago I started receiving phone calls and texts that would begin around 11:30 pm and continue until sometimes 4 or 5 AM...it wasn't all night, every night, but enough to be a PITA. After sharing a few choice words and desperate texts ("PLEASE tell me where you got this number!") with these - and I use the term loosely - gentlemen, I was able to discover that my cell phone number had been listed as the contact number for an escort named Bella (thanks to one eloquent text: "dis Gary I lookin for Bella") on a website called Backpage.com! So I went to Backpage (which appears to be similar to Craigslist) and looked through every escort ad - after which I wanted to bleach my eyeballs - but couldn't find my number on anything, although I did find a couple of "ladies" named Bella... around this time the calls had died off so I assumed "Bella" had corrected the mistake and didn't think about again other than to laugh about it over drinks with my friends.
During one of these drinking sessions, my phone rang. For Bella. And even after I answered the phone and told this young man that I most assuredly was not a prostitute, he still sent me a text telling me to "try me, you'll like me" and then called AGAIN. It literally took my male friend to answer the phone and tell this guy that I had a penis for him to stop calling or texting. Ugh. And last night I got a call from a man named Bill who didn't believe me when I told him he had the wrong number...followed at 3:00 this morning by another man who told me he called one number and got a voicemail to call a second number (mine). I asked him to text it to me, which he did, and then sent me another message asking me where I was from! Dude. Really??

So at 4 this morning I called the first number, and the outgoing message very clearly leaves my cell phone number. Considering my number has been my number for like 7 or 8 years now I'm not sure how that would happen, unless someone is doing this on purpose?? LOL. I wonder who I pissed off??

I called her over and over and left her *several* messages and have yet to get a response. And as of the last time I called, she hadn't changed the message. I suppose the next step would be to contact Backpage?

And unfortunately, turning my cell phone off at night isn't really an option, as my disabled mother lives in the back of my property and I would never forgive myself if she had some sort of emergency and couldn't reach me...

This entire situation has completely grossed me out - all told, there were 20+ calls/texts from 10-15 different numbers.

It gives me the heebie jeebies to think about it.

Then combine this with the fact that I am BARELY sleeping as it is, as I'm trying desperately to adjust to my brand-stinking-new CPAP machine (which I'm afraid to going to cause some delays with my surgery, because there is no way my pulmonologist will sign off my surgery if I can't get the CPAP thing straight) and I ended up spending the last two hours before I needed to get up for work between crying and overthinking my entire life.

Sigh.

[Pillar2butterfly 391]

Report it to the police.

[BLERDgirl 6,417]

Have you read the story of Zola? Google it. It took the internet by storm last week. Backpage.com is a hook up site. Prostitutes post there to advertise themselves. REPORT THIS TO THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY and take all precautions. Contact the site admin to get the page taken down. Change your phone number and email addresses. You need to find out who listed you on that site and press charges. This is more than an annoyance, this could be potentially dangerous.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

I agree. Whether it was just a mistake or something more sinister, report it to the police and change your number.

[sprocket 104]

At this point, you need to change your number or deal with the calls. Once it's out there, there's no going back.

[goodnuff 239]

Gosh, and I get peeved when I get calls once every few months for painting jobs because a national company put my number in their Google listing. Good luck.

[brandy25 7]

As much as it might be a pain there is a simple solution. Change your number.

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

If you have a police report, depending on your carrier you might be able to change your number for free.

[abtenney419 13]

Wow. Apparently I have been living under a rock, because I never heard of Zola and I thought Backpage was a legit classifieds site, just with an adult section ????

And I definitely appreciate everyone's input.

I called Bella one more time, and she answered - she laughed and apologized and said she must have misread her number.. she said she wondered why no one had called her.LOL...

She seemed sincere, and said she would change it as soon as we hung up. I will call again later to make sure she has, and if she did at this point (provided there are no more calls to my number) I probably won't pursue any further action, as it didn't "feel" threatening...I know, I know. BUT. If anything else feels wonky I will definitely file a police report and change my number...

Thanks again for all the input ????

[BLERDgirl 6,417]

Please take this seriously. I would contact backpage admin, not this Bella person. Make sure your name and number is not given out. File a police report and change the number. This is quite serious. I have heard of women having creeps and crazies show up at their house to rape, have rough sex, etc... It's far too easy to reverse look up and find someone's address from a phone number.

[reree6898 1,164]

As for turning off your phone at night most all phones have a night time setting where you can set certain numbers to ring through but any other number will be silent during designated hours. Mine will only ring for my immediate family and my alarm company from 9:30 pm till 8 am.

[Dub 9,922]

As for turning off your phone at night most all phones have a night time setting where you can set certain numbers to ring through but any other number will be silent during designated hours. Mine will only ring for my immediate family and my alarm company from 9:30 pm till 8 am.

Exactly. The "Do Not Disturb" feature on iPhones is killer. So very useful.

[VSG for ALC 6]

Wow! I had the EXACT same experience with someone posting my cell phone number on Backpage.com for prostitution services. What are the chances that two of us on this site had the same experience? This must be a much bigger problem or some type of scam. I contacted the Backpage administration and it took quite some time for my number to be removed. I had to block every incoming phone number for over a month. The sick part is that these loser men sounded like regular dudes with wives and children soliciting prostitutes. This sounds like a class action lawsuit. I was extremely bothered by the lude calls and sexually explicit text messages. I was fearful that my nine-year-old would accidentally read one of those texts so I had to constantly erase that nonsense. It also ruined my ability to sleep for over a month because the calls came all night long and once I'm awakened I always have a hard time going back to sleep.

Edited November 7, 2015 by VSG for ALC

[abtenney419 13]

@@reree6898 That's a great idea - and one that never even crossed my mind. Good grief. So not only do I apparently live under a rock, I also spend my time under there daydreaming and drooling!

I've been kind of AWOL over the weekend, but here is the latest:

"Bella" did remove my number from her outgoing voicemail message - I verified this for myself.

So far, the calls and texts have stopped.

And while this really did feel like an honest mistake on her part and not malicious or intentional, after some additional pondering and reading what you guys have to say I have decided to contact my cell provider and see about changing my number.

Too much potential for trouble, and I'm just not willing to risk it. Better safe than sorry, and all that.

Thanks again