Teen son been a victim of a scam

He is a victim of catfishing and extortion here BUT your DS sent the photos to someone he believed to be a minor child. You need to impress on him whst thr consequences of that could have been!

In all honesty, even if your sons face in in the photos and it does get posted (unlikely as the scammers don't have anything to gain at this point) just tell everyone someone was trying to extort money from ds and they used AI to make photos of him. It will be embarrassing for a bit, and it's a harsh way to learn a lesson, but ultimately it will all be forgotton about before long by his friends.

Wrt the police that may be tricky to navigate, it depends on how old the scammer said this girl was. I can't imagine he would get charged, but he may get a good talking to. They should also be offering some support as well.

Contact police.

Unlikely they will leak them but they will probably sell the photos to sick people :(

This iplayer episode is an interesting watch. I'm so sorry this has happened. Such a despicable crime.

“No lectures about social media and all his friends have it”

Yikes.

I’m sure you do actually feel bad about allowing him to be accessed by criminals and taken advantage of. I have very strong feelings about how parents like us should listen to their own instincts on this.

are we as parents seriously ok with putting our kids out there like this?!

It’s madness

@Randomchat

Police also gave him a good tip- they said to find a photo of the Hulk or some bodybuilder, amazing physique person (with shorts on), and badly photoshop ds's face on it. Then if scammers do release a naked photo ds should post his photo along with a message saying- "I think I've been hacked. If you see a naked photo that's claiming to be me, it's not. This is what I actually look like with no clothes on". So making it a joke and making people doubt if the naked photo is ds or not. Rather than disappearing online and then everyone will assume it is you and you're embarrassed.

Great idea.

I worked in a school where an ex gf distributed naked photos of one of the boys.

He was mad and embarrassed at first and then was like “yeah so what, that’s my dick get over it. You either have one yourself or you’ve never seen one so enjoy it” - it literally stopped everyone in their tracks and no one cared because he acted like he didn’t care.

@worriedmum223

"We are considering changing his number and deleting the email address that they are aware of. The Tik Tok account has been blocked but we will delete his account too once I’ve seen the police and they have all the information off it that they need"

Keep the evidence and screenshot everything, don't delete just yet, hopefully the police will give you best information on how to proceed.

online resources suggest;

1. Stop All Contact Immediately: Block the user on all platforms (TikTok, WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc.) and cease all communication. Do not pay any money, as this rarely guarantees the deletion of photos and often leads to further demands.
2. Save Everything (Evidence): Take screenshots of all conversations, profiles, and any photos sent. Note down the user's username, profile information, and any phone numbers or email addresses they used. This evidence is crucial for reporting the incident.
3. Do Not Delete Your Account: While you may want to delete your accounts, do not do so immediately, as this may also delete the valuable evidence needed for investigation.

Your poor son, he must have been terrified @worriedmum223.

Echo others, that thank goodness you found out, also so useful that you have an alert on his bank account.

Good luck to you all 🌸

You can monitor his text messages on a PC, if he is on an Android you can set up Family Link (supposed to be for under 13s but it is still on my 14yo phone) and block him from reinstalling WhatsApp/Tiktok etc. Given his age you probably want this to be temporary but he sounds like he's likely to be on board with a temporary ban.

He's a child and the victim here, OP, he won't be in any trouble. If the person released the images, they would be in trouble, especially as they are images of a minor. The person responsible most likely knows this and is just after easy money and capitalising on their victims' fear.

You've done the right thing here. I hope your meeting with the police is reassuring.

We can tell our children until we're blue in the face, sometimes they have to learn for themselves the hard way.

I hope your son is OK - this is a pretty harsh lesson.

I would message them to say the police have been contacted and that they are distributing child pornography which is an offence.

I am assuming he had his face in them which is awful.

Tell him that although what he did was silly, there are millions of naked photos on the internet and so they’re not going to leak these photos because they know they’re not getting their money and what would be the point as no one would care.

Frankly, it’s a kids penis which no one would care to see or if they did see it aren’t going to think much about it when they can see pictures of dicks whenever they want to.

Tell him to not do it again but if he ever gets the urge then to never show his face.
It’s easy to say to not do it but these are very sophisticated adults whose job it is to manipulate and trick people - even grown adults fall for it.

Tell him it’s nothing personal to him.
They do it to multiple people every day and in a few days it will all be forgotten about.

I actually don’t think there is much worse for a teen to have the worry about someone sharing their naked pics with someone.

Reassure him that this is not the end of the world. It will all be fine. He did well yo tell you.

He should remove all his friends from his account, close the account and start again with a new phone number and social media.

You need to supervise more closely. 14 year olds shouldn’t have tiktok account that isn’t closely monitored. Going forward, you should have log in details to his social media so you can access as necessary. You should check his accounts are wholly private, so he can’t be contacted by strangers. You should take his phone at night and check it.

Similar happened to my ds. He gave the scammers £100. We did report to the police who were actually really supportive, although didn't try to trace the scammers or anything.

Police told him to block and ignore, said these types of scammers target 1000s of people every day and if you block them they rarely bother pursuing. Sadly they are more likely to pursue people who do get sucked into talking to them, asking them to stop, negotiating. If you just block them they'll move on because they have 999 other targets that day.

Police also gave him a good tip- they said to find a photo of the Hulk or some bodybuilder, amazing physique person (with shorts on), and badly photoshop ds's face on it. Then if scammers do release a naked photo ds should post his photo along with a message saying- "I think I've been hacked. If you see a naked photo that's claiming to be me, it's not. This is what I actually look like with no clothes on". So making it a joke and making people doubt if the naked photo is ds or not. Rather than disappearing online and then everyone will assume it is you and you're embarrassed.

I've not explained that as well as the Police officer did but the idea of doing it did cheer ds up.

Nothing else ever came of it. No photos were ever released.

It's truly horrible though. Your poor ds. I'm glad he told you in the end. I'm glad my ds could tell me. We must be doing something right!

Same thing happened with my DS, he woke me up asking for money and then blurted out what had happened. You can tell kids until you are blue in the face not to do something but they will. Full kudos to your son for telling you.

in DS’s case, we reported to the police and blocked his WhatsApp account as that was how he was being contacted, no pictures were ever published and we had a throw off, self deprecating comment lined up if it was. DS did unblock WhatsApp after a year and contact was made again, immediately reblocked but have had nothing since.

Did you read the post?!

Edited - please ignore, as I can see you’ve already said you responded before your morning coffeee 😂

Yes. His age doesn't mean he is immune to the charge of distribution of child porn, even though it is of himself.

Had cases of this at my school with students I teach.

He probably won't be charged. BUT it is possible.

Poor kid. I would expect the police to be very understanding about it. They are trained to deal with this stuff and he is a victim.

I understand your instinct to protect him from talking about it but actually I think getting it out in the open air (within reason obvs) is part of a sensible response. Yes it is embarrassing but embarrassment can be overcome and put behind you. Shame feeds in the dark and being very matter of fact about what has happened is like sunlight on it.

Your poor son, please be kind to him.

As upsetting as this is, it could be a very valuable life lesson, not to always take things on face value.

Same happened to my dd, police were not particularly helpful, took us to an interview room and told her she could be given a criminal record for sharing the images, something she still worries about 3 years later. The scammer had an address in London, details were apparently passed on to the relevant force and that was the end of it as far as they were concerned.

Oh gosh, how awful for you all. This is my worst nightmare after reading a similar story where the teen ended up taking his own life.

Dont be too hard on your DS. These people prey on shame. Shame makes most people do things we wouldn’t normally do so it’s unsurprising he didn’t come straight to you. He had one momentary lapse in judgement in sending those photos but other than that, he has come out of it relatively unscathed and has had an incredible learning experience.

I doubt anything will come of the photos. They know they are dealing with a teenager that doesn’t have unlimited funds. As soon as they realise this well has run dry they’ll be onto the next. There is no value to them sharing the photos and they only care about money.

Change his phone number and delete all SM accounts and set up new ones with different usernames.

Well done in finding out and dealing with it, boys have been suicidal because of these animals. I'm sure he won't be in any trouble with the police, these scammy people are very persuasive adults who exploit naive children, your DS has done mothing wrong apart from being too trusting and innocent. A hard lesson learned.

Unfortunately this is a growing trend which is particularly affecting boys. I have attended training (pshe lead in achool) and the police are seeing it more and more. Try not to worry. The police will support with moving forwards.

Same thing happened here and the girl DS had been chatting to for weeks turned out to be a Nigerian gang. He paid them, then realised they wouldn’t stop and came and got me out of bed at 2 am for help. We went through everything together, deleted the app the threats were made on and blocked the bastards. I went to the police who told me there was nothing we could do as they were Nigerian. They also told me that if we made a formal complaint then the photos of DS would be included as evidence in a file that would stay associated with him for ever and asked did we want this. As we live in a small country with a de facto digital ID, as the police couldn’t do anything, and as we didn’t want explicit pictures of DS on file, we did not make a formal complaint.

Teenage boys really need to be told very plainly that anyone requesting nudes online will always be a scammer or a man. Dick pics are not the way to a young girl's heart.

Good luck OP. I hope you get it sorted and I'm very glad he told you about it.

Hi OP you can look up the Internet Watch Foundation - they are trhe UK body who have the ability to remove illegal CSA images from the internet, they can track the images and remove them from circulation.

Also let the police know.

One thing I would do is make sure your son knows that while it is serious it is not the end of the world and he will be able to put it behind him.