Received Disturbing Text on Shared Phone; How to Handle?

Anonymous
My 7th grade DS does not have his own phone yet, so he often uses mine for communicating with friends, playing games and watching Tik Tok videos. Through some outlet no doubt related to one of these, he (I) received a text from a person identifying himself as a doctor and encouraging my son to talk to him in confidence about "coming out." (There is more to the text but I will spare those details here.) I responded with a note asking who this is, and the person came back with DS's name, adding that "your mother asked me to talk to you."

I did a check of the phone number and nothing comes up.

How would you handle this? Should it be reported to the police?

Thanks for any guidance.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:My 7th grade DS does not have his own phone yet, so he often uses mine for communicating with friends, playing games and watching Tik Tok videos. Through some outlet no doubt related to one of these, he (I) received a text from a person identifying himself as a doctor and encouraging my son to talk to him in confidence about "coming out." (There is more to the text but I will spare those details here.) I responded with a note asking who this is, and the person came back with DS's name, adding that "your mother asked me to talk to you."

I did a check of the phone number and nothing comes up.

How would you handle this? Should it be reported to the police?

Thanks for any guidance.



If you're dad, then speak to his mother. If you're mom, yes, I would report to the police.
Anonymous
I would. That sounds scary and serious to me especially given they know your son’s name. I would continue to pursue this although I’m not sure how to investigate it.
Anonymous
Do not engage with the person any more. Report it to the police. Don't wait. Do what they tell you to do.

No competent and real doctor would make initial contact with a child about such a personal and confidential topic via text. The doctor would lose his or her license for that.
Anonymous
Thank you. I'm the mom. Will do on reporting to police, immediately.
Anonymous
That’s scary! Have you talked to your son about it? It could obviously be an adult predator or it could be a jerky kid cat fishing your son into “admitting” he’s gay. Good luck.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Thank you. I'm the mom. Will do on reporting to police, immediately.


We has something similar happen some years ago. Not sure where you are, but you should try to get in touch with a detective that can handle cyber related issues as well as child endangerment. The garden variety patrol officers are pretty useless. My DH (who works in cybersecurity, etc) ended up giving the well intentioned cop a lecture/crash course on those issues, and then they sent out a detective who was more well versed. Might as well skip that step if you can.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:That’s scary! Have you talked to your son about it? It could obviously be an adult predator or it could be a jerky kid cat fishing your son into “admitting” he’s gay. Good luck.


+1 so scary. I’d probably talk to my son to find out if there were any other contacts like this.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Thank you. I'm the mom. Will do on reporting to police, immediately.


We has something similar happen some years ago. Not sure where you are, but you should try to get in touch with a detective that can handle cyber related issues as well as child endangerment. The garden variety patrol officers are pretty useless. My DH (who works in cybersecurity, etc) ended up giving the well intentioned cop a lecture/crash course on those issues, and then they sent out a detective who was more well versed. Might as well skip that step if you can.


Thank you. I just called the DC 311 number. They are turning it over to cyber unit and said that I'll receive a call from them today.
Anonymous
OMG clearly it is some kid trolling your kid.
Just block the number and be done. It isn't a matter for the fracking police. Jesus.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:OMG clearly it is some kid trolling your kid.
Just block the number and be done. It isn't a matter for the fracking police. Jesus.


And what makes you think that? The wording of the text would matter. Guessing that OP can tell from the language and wording whether or not a kid wrote it.

If it turns out to be a kid trolling, they will get a good scare in what happens if you use texts to send "disturbing" language.
Anonymous
I would block the number and move on.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:OMG clearly it is some kid trolling your kid.
Just block the number and be done. It isn't a matter for the fracking police. Jesus.


There are plenty of predators online looking to access and groom kids over the internet. I would not be so quick to dismiss it as a kid’s prank.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OMG clearly it is some kid trolling your kid.
Just block the number and be done. It isn't a matter for the fracking police. Jesus.


There are plenty of predators online looking to access and groom kids over the internet. I would not be so quick to dismiss it as a kid’s prank.


This. If it’s a kids prank, it will never happen again. If it isn’t, it’s a sexual predator. The police will sort that out.
Anonymous
I suspect it’s a kid and I would still call the police . The kid need a a good scare about what can happen when you send texts like that.
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