You are absolutely right about that red flag, Erin, I should have done more homework.
But as I said, she was recommended by a dude who has not previously steered me wrong, and in fact, someone else just called my attention to the fact that she DOES have TER reviews, her TER review ID is 251347. So really, other than the texts "I need that $ now", there was really no reason for me to anticipate this kind of trouble, beforehand. Her two reviews, in fact, are good ones, and there was no hint of ROB activity either in those reviews, or from the dude I know who told me about her.
But you are right--backpage has become, more and more, the sewer of this hobby. Yet, there are some very fine, honest, fun girls I've found on backpage--in fact, even a few "high end" girls who usually advertise on eros are using backpage quite frequently lately, probably because of the economic cutbacks that everyone except the weathiest have had to make, in recent years. In LA, in fact, I have even seen some fairly successful porn stars who are now advertising on backpage. So, backpage has really become much like Forrest Gump's proverbial box of chocoltes--you pick one out--but you just never know what you are going to get! : (