Help With Blackmail

If caught up in a blackmail situation, you need to go dark by shutting down your social sites or making them as private as possible. However, do not block the blackmailer; if you do, they might contact family and friends, so by keeping in contact, you maintain control. What is key is knowing what the criminal knows about you. Do they have your real name, email address, and mobile number? If so, do any of those pieces of information accurately identify you? Meaning, can the data lead to family, friends, work, or social sites? If so, it puts you, your family, and career at risk.

Blackmail is like a game of chicken, he who flinches first loses. They want money, and you do not wish to be exposed. The power in blackmail is the money; if you pay, you become powerless and will be further victimized. Sending money is not just paying off the blackmailer but also supplying more information about you. If they never had your email, and you used PayPal to pay, they now have your email, and possibly name and address. If you used a money transfer service and took a photo of the transaction and sent it to them, they now have your name and address. The same goes if you paid via a wire transfer. In "relationship blackmail" where you have been involved with a person, past payments are used as leverage.

The important questions are what to do about blackmail and who to call. Some think, law enforcement but unfortunately, that is useless. Most will tell you to ignore, which is extremely irresponsible advice. Ignoring will make a blackmailer angry, which is a time bomb waiting to expose. It risks your content going live without your knowledge, and possibly someone you know finding. Depending on the privacy laws, your police report could become public record.

The male species are not the only victims, just more susceptible. With women, the sextortion typically derives from an online romance scam. The victim meets a man on the internet, he works or lives in a foreign country, and they find themselves instantly in love. Something goes wrong in the man's life, he needs money, and the victim sends. During this time, they have also exchanged compromising photos or videos. Eventually, the victim discovers the relationship is a scam, then the extortion begins.

Some predators target females, not for money, but to control them into sending more compromising content. They threaten if the victim does not keep sending; they will expose them to family and friends. The demands can be extreme and disturbing. 

There is a long list of the various types of blackmail scams, from dominatrix blackmail, sissy blackmail, to online revenge. I could go on, but you get the picture. So, the question is, what to do about blackmail? Because there are different types, no one answer fits all. As mentioned, make all your social media as private as possible. It does not hurt to tell those in your circle that you were hacked and not to open suspicious emails or text with your name.