Is Backpage Riddled With Police Sting Operations?

[SROSFanboy]

I'm not as savvy as some of you about online sleuthing, so was just wondering if there was any rule of thumb that could tell you if a Backpage listing was suspect (in terms of a trap) ? If you enter an escort's phone # on Google, you sometimes get a ton of links that appear to be other sex websites trying to smear the person you're researching so as to lead you to their sites which claim to be "safe." All the same, that nevertheless doesn't instill much confidence in me.

 

As an example, there's this guy who's advertising in Springfield, Mass. and appears to be really hot, but isn't charging much (in one of the ads he mentions "60 roses" or something like that). Example ad here:

http://massachusetts.backpage.com/MenSeekMen/hosting-in-spfld/38366564

Also, recently he advertised in just about every New England state for travelers to come see him in

Springfield; a law enforcement operation wouldn't reach out to people hundreds of miles away in other

states/jurisdictions, would they? Would be interested in hearing any input - also, just curious, have any any of you been "caught," or nearly nabbed before?

[JayCeeKy]

Doing a google image search shows that the phone number is referenced to both a male and a female - never a good sign. Plus, there's a lot of chatter of police stings and police involvement surrounding the one photo. Also, the photos look old and certainly don't look like your typical escort pics, even by BP standards. Also, I never trust an ad that runs in numerous locations - it usually indicates a scam of some sort. I would be very wary in contacting this person. I have no experience of being "nabbed" except for speeding a time or two (or three). A good lawyer would tell you to never connect a cash payment to having a sexual encounter either on the phone, email, and esp not in person.

[SROSFanboy]

What I'm finding online is that a lot of the "chatter" or police stings is on bogus sites like bustedescorts.com and escortspolice.com - apparently the sites "scrape" Backpage for ads and phone #'s and publish made up info on the #'s, directing the viewer to another dishonest site like EZsex.com to get money. Also the above mentioned sites that list escort #'s and fraudulent (but well made up, appearing valid on the surface) info on them also charge the escorts $$$ to get their names removed... a total scam. I wish there were some way to know if a provider were on the up and up, but I guess it's just a judgment call. I read somewhere that police stings normally don't take out multiple ads on Backpage, i.e., every other day or so. Anyway, I've been in touch with this guy, and he sounds very decent, and is definitely responsive to my texts, but the one red flag that really stands out for me is that his rate is so low. Since he's quite a distance from me, I'm feeling antsy about driving that far for an unknown quantity, and since he's hosting in-calls only, you're kind of at a disadvantage being on his turf. He claims to live alone, but how do you really know there isn't someone else living there - basically, you don't. I want to believe he's a good guy, because his texts are very warm and he seems to genuinely want to please the client.

[sexymonk]

Yes it is riddled with all sting operations! I heard that their main focus is on child and woman human trafficking . But unfortunately males workers are becoming victim of this!

[Epigonos]

I have been hiring now for fifteen years and have never had a really bad or frightening experience. Yes I have been lucky BUT I have always followed the old adage "when in doubt don't". There are far to many well vetted escorts out there to make me willing to play with fire.