Teen son been a victim of a scam

This is unfortunately an incredibly common scam. The scammer will be contacting hundreds of other teens and will have already moved on now that your son has blocked them. They had no intention of ever posting the photos, it is purely a ruse to blackmail your DS. It’s an awful situation and no doubt incredibly distressing for your DS, as others have said there have been lots of suicides as a result so the fact he has told you and has your support is very important and gives an opportunity for him to overcome his distress. I would also seek counselling for him so he has a neutral space to discuss what’s happened as it may not be something he wants to fully explain to his parents.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think they’d go to the depths of seeking him via email or his phone number. They will have forgotten about your son already. However, if it gives you peace of mind then there is no harm in changing them.

Your DS has made a mistake but he’s been very brave by telling you about it and hopefully has learnt a very valuable lesson.

Fuck off.

The OPs child has been the victim of a sophisticated scam by adults who are experienced in targeting vulnerable individuals.

He, the child, is a victim and your comment is not helpful.

Give him this to read

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/19/myanmar-scam-call-centre-compound-rescues-thailand-crackdown

He is not the victim of grooming.
He is not a foolish boy.
He is the victim of a vast criminal gang.
The "girl" that he was talking to is not a scamming girl, it's a trafficked man who is forced to do this under threat of violence to him and his family.

Get him to share this information with his friends.
Get them to understand that the chance of it being a real girl ever is about 0.001%

It's horrific that both scammed and scammer are victims in this.

But rest assured that they don't know him as a person. Just a number, one of tens of thousands they're talking to every day.

He can walk away from it. He can let his friends know they can walk away from similar things. Hopefully none of them will take drastic action if they end up in a similar place.

Good can come from this.

Hugs to you both

We went through this a few years ago and used CEOP. I took the phone away from my son and spent a few hours looking back over the correspondence and into the identity of the person that had conducted this. They had stupidly badly disguised their identification and I found him working for a firm out in silicon Valley America. I was able to screenshot everything and send it on to CEOP.

CEOP were amazing I spoke to my son and I and we’re brilliantly reassuring and they told us which agencies we needed to contact which we did and they confirmed that the information we have passed them was going onto onto Interpol and although we wouldn’t hear anything further from the investigation they had enough, they had enough evidence now to make a move.

I think we need to have a campaign here on @mumnet To highlight the benefits of using CEOP And also how to react in those first few hours when this happens.
I would also talk to our young people on a regular basis about this because this is gonna be their lives on going it’s not just now it’s forever there’s going to be scams.

just to say nothing happened and no money was transferred

This would be my biggest concern.

Its one of the worst things a teen can go through (they’re so self conscious and really care what people think of them) and I can absolutely see why they’d turn to suicide.

Thankfully he told the OP and so hopefully he won’t do anything like this.

These young people are the victims but so often they end up blaming themselves and seeing no way out.

@worriedmum223 "... but it’s such a stupid and out of character thing for him to do."

I don't want to lecture you about your own son - I really don't. But boys at that age are incredibly vulnerable to this type of thing. Please, please, please reassure him he didn't do anything wrong. I realise you think he did but, honestly, all the blame rests on the scammers. They are scum, and I don't care how poor they are. Please give your son unconditional support - no blame whatsoever. When the dust settles - as it will, in a few months or a couple of years - have a conversation with him about this.

It's not pointless. I'm wondering why it happened anyway and what we can learn from that

I'm so sorry OP, it must be horrific for him but I am so glad you know about it and he's not carrying it on his own. Hopefully the police will be able do something concrete on terms of tracing those people.

If they do share the photos unfortunately your son will need to brave it out and I agree that taking the position of being open about being scammed is probably one of the best responses. But it will pass and he clearly has some good support.

I don't think your son will be in trouble at all - I assume he thought the 'girl' was the same age as him or older? That's the only issue I could really potentially foresee. The police are well aware of how fake accounts groom kids for these scams. The account however, if they share the photos of your son, will be in additional trouble for sharing photos of a child. You're right to take advice from the police.

You're also right that there's no need for lectures, you've all learned a big lesson and all of us here can also take it as a lesson against complacency. I have also had conversations with my daughter and her school does so regularly as well but when it's just them and their phone, things are different.

My son had this happen at round about that age but THANK GOD he came and told me before sending anything as he realised he was being catfished. He was so upset. They know about the dangers but these scammers can be convincing. Look at all these elderly people conned out of their life savings. I'm so sorry for your son and you all. At least you had notifications from his bank set up. I'm going to show my son this as a reminder though he is older and wiser now. The only person to blame is this sick scammer. Your son is only 14, I think it will be ok. And as for him not telling you...not sure mine would've if he'd actually followed through even though we are close. Please don't beat yourself up just be there for him, and supportive, which I'm sure you are being xxx

Aw OP this is horrible. As others have said, the chances of them being leaked are slim - really these people are just generally hoping to frighten vulnerable people into sending them money and don’t have much interest in the work involved in acting on their threat should the money not come their way and are hesitant to make themselves more traceable by distributing the images themselves.

IF (and it’s a big if) the worst happens, please tell your son this is not the end of the world. It’s really really not. People do far worse things than share an embarrassing picture of themselves everyday. If it happens and he shares the fact that he has been extorted, the vast majority would take very dim view of the perpetrator rather than your son. People also move on so quickly, he’ll feel embarrassed initially but it won’t be long before people move onto the next hot topic. I would also notify his school, so that they can hopefully be ready to take action also if needed.

I hope you can get some help from the police. No lectures from me on anything, as the amount of distress your son has faced means the hard lesson has already been learnt. Wishing the best for you both

What a nasty pointless comment.

I haven’t managed to read all of the posts yet so apologies if I’m repeating what others have said.

Firstly, I am so very glad your son opened up to you. There have been many reports of young men dying by suicide because of this scam. Please don’t shame him further by being angry or punishing him, he already knows what he’s done and is suffering the consequences of that.

The photos won’t be leaked.

I hope the police are helpful and can reassure your son so that you can all start to move on from this.

The fact that he told you the truth is testament to what good parents you must be.

Contact https://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/

immediatly they are amazing

Can you read?

I’m so sorry for you and your DS, OP. A boy at DS’s school killed himself over a very similar situation recently (scammers also based abroad) so I’m so glad yours spoke to you about it. its so important at to speak to our DC about these situations because they are teens and even without social media they will still make mistakes and end up in crazy/silly/dangerous/scary situations (I know I did back in the 90s!). It’s so important that they can reach out to parents for help no matter what the issue is.

I also like what a PP said that if the photos do get leaked you can say they are AI generated.

Hello, I just wanted to post and send hugs to both you and your Ds, this makes a heartbreaking read and must be so tough for you both to go through. There’s some horrible people in the world aren’t there?
I have a 13 year old ds who got got into trouble over “images” a couple of months ago, fortunately less severe than this but still absolutely awful at the time.

I made him sit down and read this thread so thank you for sharing.

I do think it’s important to remind him that although this is very serious he won’t be the first or last teen to get into trouble this way and one day it will be yesterday’s news and he will have moved on from this…I’m so glad he told you Op!!

So sorry to hear this. Your son must be distraught. It’s great that you are talking openly about it. Similar cases where the parents didn’t know have had tragic consequences. No advice as such but assure him he’s done nothing wrong apart from being foolish/impulsive. These scammers prey on feelings of shame and embarrassment- he needs to rise above that and move on with his head held high. Sending supportive unMN like hugs to you all

I am so glad that your son told you about this. This is absolutely not his fault, he is the victim of a horrible and shocking crime. I hope you & your son are ok.

This happened to a friend's neighbour. They found their son (the same age as yours) dead in his bedroom. He was being blackmailed over photos.

OP there is an app run by child line and the police that can remove his photos from the 'white' web if they were to get posted. Dark web not so much, but it's better than nothing. It is quite unlikely they would get posted as it brings a digital footprint to the scams and they still won't receive any money. Please Google it I can't remember the name of it.

Secondly, it would be extremely unlikely your DS would get into trouble. He may be given a stern warning about sharing explicit photos but that will be more about ensuring he doesn't share any or receive any even if it was a girl the same age who he knew for example, in the future. I think most police are aware they are already pretty embarrassed and want them to cooperate.

Please don't expect much from the police though, if it's international it's almost impossible for non specialist police to trace and any bigger operations you'd never be given an insight to anyway. So please don't let your DS be disheartened that he may feel like this has gotten nowhere by involving the police.

Finally use this to tighten all your online security for everyone in the family, 2 Factor Authentication for everything (you can do it on all social media too) search the recommendations for cyber security such as 3 word passwords etc.
I would personally change DS phone number and email address, any personalised information and close any social media accounts using those details.
His personal information could possibly get passed on and removing any attachments to this is the best way to move forward.
Also delete any photos from the messages themselves, so they have no further opportunity to save them.

https://ivisontrust.org.uk/for-parents/
this is a link to an organisation that may be able to help you.

I hope you’ve deleted his TikTok?

Oh yes. And you've never made a mistake in your entire life because you knew everything from birth.

Say something helpful or perhaps don't bother