Maybe I am naïve but had usually found that you could not learn anything from a reverse phone lookup for a cell phone number.  Until I tried http://www.privacystar.com/reverse-lookup/   (nice bit of irony in the name).    Now it seems your name is available.  Do we all need to buy burners?  Be careful to block the number on each call?   Other solution?

The reasons are a mile long and even though you might be tracked through a burner phone it'd be a whole lot tougher and provide a whole lot less evidence in court.  
      Yes your number leads to your name now and has for at least 4 yrs. not to mention the risks associated with unwanted calls, blackmail if your real name is out there (including John sites that extort money), evidence that might be on your personal phone. If you think about the reasons to not use your real phone the list is pretty long. If you can afford to see escorts the 10$ a month a burner phone runs is cheap insurance.

I use a virgin mobile burner phone AND pay cash for the monthly minutes. I got  the phone from a walmart in another state. I buy the minutes from a gas station 150 miles from my house that I drive past every few weeks. No way this phone gets traced back to me.

There are some free apps (adware) such as Sideline (I have it for android) that give you a second number for your cellphone.  It wouldn't be useful for hiding from the law, since they can subpoena the records, but for other aspects of privacy from the more criminal element, it should be adequate.  For $3/month you can get rid of the adware.

I've never heard of escort clients getting tagged based on phone records, though.  The cases I see in the papers are generally stings in which clients talk money for sex, not over the phone, but at location

Pay cash for everything, never give out any real info when setting it up or adding minutes and you are good to go.  Anything happens that makes you feel uncomfortable using that number then lose or destroy the phone and start over.

P.S.  I put my real number into the website you listed and even just the teaser info they give to try to get people to sign up was wrong.

That privacystar reverse lookup is hit or miss.  It did pop out some valid names about half the time.

Can I ask how you activated it? Also do you turn it on at home and you office? Maybe have it on driving? Does it have wifi and has it ever linked to a local network?    
      It might not be but it s hard for it to be completely untraceable, but basically the same approach applies. The better protected you are the better off you are.  

Naïve may not be the right word.  Let's be clear.  Every detail associated with your cell number is fully available to anyone who wants (to pay for) it.

Agreed 100% (or is it 1000%?  BP ads have ruined my math skills).  If I have your phone #, I can find a lot about you. It only takes a $30 payment and you can find someone's name, address, and social media history on reverse-lookup sites like Spokeo. I'm sure LE has unlimited access to the best reverse-lookup tools out there. After looking up my hobby persona, I'm going to have to make some changes to my online behavior.  There's way too much info out there about the fake me and some of it might lead back to the real me.

I had another post on this, but it got stuck in admin limbo because it included a link (and maybe they didn't like that it was to a different hobby site). I had listed a few alternatives to burner phones that I got from posts on another site.  Here's a list of phone/text apps that might be handy.  If you use Android, you can hide apps, but you can't on iPhone without jailbreaking it. Here's the list.  I haven't tested them, but the were recommended by others:

Sideline
Burner
TextFree
TextPlus

I did the activation over the cell service using activation code I paid cash for. I have never turned the wifi on. Usually dont have it on at home.

If you've ever turned your burner phone on at the same time you had your personal cell turned on you're not anonymous.  Or if you turned your burner phone on in your home or office.  By law, the cell companies keep records of what towers your phone(s) talk to and they can triangulate your position within about 10 feet.  So all they have to do to prove the burner phone was used by you is to request the records and look at the history and compare some things and they got you.  If your burner and personal phone were at the same location at the same time -- they got you.

Remember the guy who murdered someone about 6 - 8 months ago and they got his cell records which proved he was a few feet from where the body was later found?  Its not done using GPS...its done using 3 towers and timings and they pinpoint your phone location at a given point in time and that all gets logged.

The burner phones are the way to go.  Don't use an app on your personal phone.  At least with a burner phone if you pay cash for it and pay cash for the minutes then its way harder to identify you.  But never believe even with a burner phone they can't identify you...it just makes things way harder.   Also, you could destroy your burner phone every 6 months or so and get a new one.  Then you get a fresh start in terms of your history.  It really depends on how cautious you want to be.  A lot of people like to blow it off and say there is nothing to worry about.  Which is ridiculous considering you're breaking the law.  Why the heck would you not cover your butt to the best of your ability?  Its way smarter to assume the worst and be really cautious then to assume the best and be lax and regret it later.

Now I agree that you need to be careful and not use your cell phone for this hobby.

But it isn't because of LE.    The only way you will get busted for LE is if the provider or you record messages explicitly saying money for sex... ie: text messages.

Because the LE doesn't know what you did with the provider.   You could have just sat in the room and talked.   They don't know and cant prove a thing.  You could have had sex but never gave her money.   They just don't know what went on in that room.  Or I should say can't prove what went on in that room.   But they can make your life hell trying to get you to confess something.

The more so reason to use the burner phone is that the provider can't track you down.   What I mean is extortion, call family or wife, etc.

Now lets face it this is not a legal hobby and we need to be safe out there.

All good points.  In addition, people also panic when an agency gets busted.  Far better to not have any tracks lead back to you...ever.  

Also...LE now has technology that they can mimic a cell tower and listen to your conversations without you ever knowing.   They aren't getting warrants for that either.  Google "Stingray Phone Tracker"  Nasty stuff LE is doing and I consider it highly illegal and unconstitutional.

 

 

The bang for the buck isn't there.  LE resources aren't infinite and they do have bigger fish to fry.

You have a valid point but even so erring on the side of caution means they won't be frying this fish.  They'll be catching the guys who underestimate them.  

Low-hanging fruit.

Have an old burner around that is WiFi enabled?    

I will leave the dot connecting to you gents and ladies reading this too.  

If John Law want to catch us, they will use every available resource including video camera footage, however there are bigger fish to fry.  

Remember this is an election year, Chiefs all around the country will be looking for higher office and to do that they need to pick some low lying fruit to make some headlines in local papers.  

(no one solution is 100% risk free, they're just mitigated to extremely low odds.)