Definite scam. I also inquired about prices with no commitments. Some weirdo from a US number began texting me threats saying that I was "flagged" in their system. He went on to accuse me of wasting their time, costing them money, and began accusing me of contacting them for blackmail purposes which lead to several girls quitting.
They laid all on pretty thick and then began attempting to extort me for baseless accusations that they drummed up. The texts began threatening that if I didn't pay 2k I would be harmed and they would involve my family. After I didn't reply they began getting more aggressive and started threatening to kill my family. At that point I blocked the number because it was a joke.
Some side notes are that I noticed that the dates where most people received the same threats are similar, pretty much over a 2 or 3 day period. The ads which were posted all went down shortly after the threats. There were around 4 of them with the same writing style. The fact that they threatened multiple people on similar dates in the same area code sticks out because the area code they contacted is used for several cities. The ads were actually posted in one city, but I noticed they had probably googled the area code and chose a random city, or the most populated for that code. Shortly after the threats they had posted on the Hamilton craigslist that they were looking to hire someone to hurt somebody. I can only assume that they were not from the area because they posted in a different city from where the threats were directed, but the same area code. This was probably a feeble attempt to mentally coerce anyone who might be looking at boards and stress some of the victims out. I highly doubt anyone is going to hire muscle for 2k, especially when no monetary value is actually owed.
Anyway, nothing happened. I highly recommend protecting yourself by not using your actual number because incidents like these do happen. I am not going to speculate on who it might have been, but they did claim they were an escort agency, which I highly doubt. The photos which were posted looked way too good to be true, so they probably do that on purpose to collect as many numbers as possible before starting the scam.