Southeast Montana News

Social media scam # 30 (Facebook Extortion)

Males (11-70) are being friended on Facebook/Instagram by female college students most often from a college in Texas or California.  

The college student says they need to practice some kind of skill for their studies and engages the male in a private conversation on Facebook.  The chat usually starts out with small talk and some personal questions about where the male lives and what they do for a living or school. 

After some amount of time, the female tells the male she really likes him and would like to show him her topless self as a thank you or just because.  Then the female tells the male to take off his shirt and live chat with her.  In a live chat window, a female appears and she starts stripping off her clothes and asking the male to do the same.  Once the male victim removes their clothing and shows their private parts the live chat ends with a thank you and a farewell.  

Within a few minutes, the male is contacted online by some agency stating they have a video of the male nude (which they do)  and will be sharing the video with all the male’s contacts and their co-workers.  They also explain that the female in the video chat is underage and the authorities will be contacted unless the victim sends some amount of money via Western Union or scratch-off money cards.  The amount of money is usually between $200-$1200 dollars. 

Western Union does not track who picks up payments so once the money is wired it is gone forever.  

Once the suspects receive the payment they say Thank you for your prompt payment of $500 dollars and we will expect your next payment next week and the week after until you reach a sum amount of $5,500 dollars.  Once the 5K is reached they will say thank you and give the victim the next amount until they can no longer afford to pay. 

The last couple of schemes like this I have seen has been run out of other countries so the chance of finding and prosecuting the suspects is very slim.  

Tips to live by:

1) Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know (no matter how pretty they are). 

2) Don’t send nude photos or appear nude in a live chat no matter who you think it is. 

3) Don’t send any money to anyone on Western Union (rent scheme, craigslist scheme, many other schemes.)

4) If being extorted call the police and report it. Don’t send money or they will get every bit of money you have. 

5) This applies to many social media applications.   

Deputy Gomez

Original source can be found here.