1-800-CHICAGO is Actually A Phone Sex Line Where Ladies Talk Free

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If you suddenly start seeing credit card bills with charges to 1-800-CHICAGO and your teen tries to tell you he's just really interested in information about Wrigley Field, well... he's lying. It's actually a number that connects the caller with a phone sex line, and it's just one of countless other seemingly innocuous 1-800 numbers that has been scooped up by a little company in Philadelphia.

According to an AP investigation, a company named PrimeTel Communications has spent the last decade grabbing up every decent 1-800 number it can get its hands on and now controls 1.7 million of them, around a quarter of all 800 numbers, in the U.S. and Canada.

Many of these numbers end up in the hands of A-1 Advertising, the actual phone sex business. The two companies share the same building, owners and executives, reports the AP.

Among the numbers these companies have that redirect to sex lines are 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac, 1-800-Minolta, 1-800-Cameras, 1-800-Worship and 1-800-Whirlpool. [The Consumerist]