KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA | Video Game Hint Line Leads to Adult Hotline

Video Game Hint Line Leads to Adult Hotline

MOSES LAKE, Wash.- Your kids calling for video game tips might get a phone sex line instead.

A tip line on some Playstation 2 games leads to an adult hotline.

It's something no parent wants their young child to encounter, but Margo Myers' son learned firsthand.

Myers was at work when her son got stuck on a hard Playstation 2 game and called a tipline on the game disc and got something he never expected.

Ammon Bricker likes his Playstation 2 just as much as any 12-year-old.

"I always have my friends over now and I just play it all night," Bricker said.

So when he got stuck on a level in the popular game Ratchet and Clank, he called the hintline printed on the disc.

"It said for tips and hints, hints call this number, and so I called it and it turned out it was a recycled number," he said.

This is what he got: "You have reached the hottest 900 line in the country, where you can now pick the service of your choice."

"Surprise, was my first feeling, and then it turned into a bit of anger that a number that is used for children to call to get help on these games, you know, is turned into that kind of phone number, a porn line or a sex line," said Ammon's mother, Margo Myers. 

The number appears on multiple games, including top sellers like Hot Shots Golf, and a similar number on other games leads to the same service, but when Myers called Sony to complain, she says she got the run around.

"They informed me that they have not had that number for about two years and that they are not responsible for the number," she said.

It's not unusual for numbers to be recycled, but rarely do they end up going from a kid's tip line to an adult hotline and Myers says the mistake has been stressful on both her and her son.

"I shield my children from that kind of thing, as we all do as parents, and my son being 12 I don't think that I need to call every phone number before he calls it," she said.

And she just wants to make sure other parents don't encounter the same mistake Ammon so innocently discovered.

KNDU couldn't get ahold of Sony Tuesday for their comment because most of their consumer complaint services are Internet or e-mail forms.