Pa. Gas Company Callers Get Sex-Talk Line

Friday, October 28, 2005 4:33:13 PM

WASHINGTON, Pa. (AP) - Instead of information about a utility bill, callers to phone numbers listed for a local gas company get an offer for a different kind of service.

Colombia Gas customers in Washington found that two numbers listed in the Yellow Book USA don't go to the utility, but instead reach a message directing them to a sex-talk line.

"I mean, how can this happen?" said Helen George, an Amity resident who tried to call Columbia's office in Washington but reached the Intimate Encounters line.

Officials from Columbia Gas said the numbers were from a former office and should have been changed.

Intimate Encounters makes a habit of using well-known numbers and in the past has bought the use of an old Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission number set up to report injured or dead manatees and toll-free numbers that used to belong to the Policy Review journal, the World Wildlife Fund and rape crisis lines in Maine and Arizona.