am I making too much of it?  Here's the situation...

 
Yesterday, I texted a well-established provider that I've seen at least 4 times, maybe more.  Having previously heard that some idiot monger had outed her to her landlord and her family, resulting in her having to move out of her rent house, I was a little on edge about contacting her in the first place.  But, since she's been around for a long time and has an excellent record and I've seen her multiple times before with better than expected results, I texted her.

 
I got the typical response, we agreed on a time and she sent me the name and address of her in-call hotel.  All fine and dandy up until I received another text message from her about 5-10 minutes later and she asked me if I was familiar with her rates.  WTF I thought, this is weird.

 
The first time we met, and ever since, there has never, ever been any mention of the donation (rates).  "She's an experienced pro and knows better than that", I thought.  I texted her back and said, "Whoa, big red flag.  You've never asked me about your rates before, you know better than that."  Some time passes and I get a text message that says, "I lost all the numbers in my phone, so I don't know who I've seen before".  I responded, "This doesn't feel right.  I'm going to take a pass".  

 
If, due to phone issues, she didn't know that she'd seen me before, why didn't she ask me about screening, or at least ask me who I am and have we seen each other before?  It just didn't make sense to me.  Before our first tryst, she screened me, and took the normal precautions that one expects prior to a first date.  On all subsequent dates, she knew who I was and the coms were very normal and innocuous.  

 
There were a few more messages after that, and I ultimately passed on the meeting.

 
How would you have responded?

I don't exactly know which scenario(s) you're thinking about here.
1. She gets outed, loses her place.  
2. Somehow, that leads to her getting further stung by LE (conceivable when so many people know what happened and LE entrap her) and she is "encouraged" (forced, whatever) to cooperate in another LE sting operation.
3. You have an appointment, all set up, email / phone / text evidence, ...  
4. You are on your way and LE says, "We're reeling one in! He's on his way!" "Wait a second, let's do something to scare him off and screw this up. I know, we could ask him to bring some drugs with him or something like that." "Nah, too obvious. Let's get him on a recording discussing rates."
.
Or she was just too nervous or in too much disarray as a result of the outing, moving, life disruption stuff to be more organized and confident.
.
I'm thinking it was less likely LE and more likely life-disrupting events BUT I probably would have passed on that meeting as well.

seen her 4 times within a year and if she were that great, I'd have reminded her of my name and asked for the rate. I'd carry on if the rate is the same. Though, I might ask for a recent selfie as her appearance can change drastically in a few months.

...she asked you if you're familiar with her rates before starting the screening process. Is she expensive? Maybe she was trying to eliminate some work for herself by having the potential client back out before she really had to do anything.

 
Are you implying that her phone has been compromised by law enforcement?

END OF MESSAGE

(hate that the enter key posts rather than moves to next field!)

 
That said did you check to see if her rates changed? That might be a reason for her to ask. My initial thought was inline with her comment. If she was outed by someone it makes a lot of sense to delete data for her own safety (and yours).  

 
Did the communications you did have have a familiar feel to them -- did it seem like her you were communicating with or did it seem like someone else. Certainly doesn't hurt to wait and see. Might see some new reviews or someone posting they have seen her and no riskier to see her than it ever was. I think she would probably understand someone being cautious in such a situation and happy to get some of her old clients returning.

-- Modified on 2/12/2023 5:40:02 PM

Glad I live in Australia we don’t have to deal with that BS.  
a nightmare for client and provider.  
Here it’s all legal , makes life a lot less complicated  
Good luck all

Please read my post again.  She never asked me about rates, ever.  Not before the first meet, the second nor any of the subsequent meets.  Just yesterday, via text message even.

I AM implying that I felt like her phone had been compromised by LE, or at least, that the person responding to my texts, was not actually her.  Maybe it was someone else that has access to her phone.  It was just weird.  She's a seasoned pro, well reviewed provider (I have reviewed her here on TER), etc.  The number one rule of this hobby is that money simply isn't discussed, and definitely not via text message or email.