Teen son been a victim of a scam

[worriedmum223]

NC for this. Over the weekend my ds14 has been the victim of a sextortion scam. He was contacted on Tik Tok by someone posing as a girl who coerced him into sending nude photos. As soon as they had them they threatened to leak them to his Tik Tok contacts unless he paid money. My son did not initially tell us, but we had notifications from his bank account of him trying to access money which prompted a discussion and despite initially lying about the reason, he did eventually come clean.

I am absolutely heartbroken and shocked. He was beside himself and in tears. I’ve never seen him so shaken. I have drilled into him from a young age the dangers of social media and how you never speak to strangers and certainly never share personal information or photos. I have contacted the police and am meeting with them later today but trying to keep my son out of it for now because he is so mortified and upset.

I am worried on a number of counts.

Firstly if they do actually leak the photos which would be horrific for him. Although I’m led to believe this is rare and they are more likely to just move onto the next victim when they realise it’s a dead end.

Secondly if they try to contact him again now that they have his number and email address (all contact via Tik Tok and WhatsApp has been blocked but they could find other ways). His phone has been removed at the moment but he will need it back at some point and I can’t monitor it all the time ( when he’s at school etc).

Thirdly whether he could be in trouble himself for sending and asking for explicit photos at his age.

But mostly the emotional impact this could have on him. He was so embarrassed and upset. The fact he didn’t initially feel like he could be honest has upset me. And of course that he did this full stop. I get teenage boys have raging hormones but it’s such a stupid and out of character thing for him to do.

Please no lectures about social media. All of his friends have it, it’s part of life and I really thought I’d done a good job educating him about the dangers. If anyone else has been through this please let me know your experience and what happened next.

For goodness sake. At least read the post if you are going to reply.

How awful for you all. I hope he feels better about everything soon. It happens to so many young men, he’s not alone.

You say no lectures about social
media but really, this is a huge parenting fail on so many levels.

My son is 13 and all his friends have social media and guess what? He doesn’t.
Also, why on earth are you not checking his phone daily!??? All my kids know their phones do not belong to them and I check them to protect them.

I hope you all learn some valuable lessons.

Doesn’t happen to the kids without phones / social media and who’s parents check
their phones…..

I can vouch for that. The "heads on other naked bodies" thing was done to friends of mine some 10 years ago using photoshop and its even easier now.

Id defo change the phone number and email address. Also look at snapchat insta and any other accounts as they often use very similar user names and change them too. So sad this is happening. If they are leaked prepare him to say something to save face like yeah its been hacked and its an ai photo.
also he should put a message on hos docial media with that petson user name saying warning scammer or padeo or something. They get their bext victims by scrolling his contact list. Poor boy.

This happened to my son.
I actually got a call from the police (online crimes) as he was so scared he contacted them and asked them to tell me.
In addition to explicit photos, he’d sent gift cards and had told the scammers what school he went to and (innocent) pictures of his siblings, names etc.
The police came out to take a statement. He was told repeatedly that he was a victim. It’s a scarily prevalent crime. This person/people will likely be living in Africa and this is their “job”.
We obviously also had to talk to the school, who were incredibly supportive.
The pictures never got released, thankfully, and 3 years later it’s a long forgotten nightmare. I promise you he’ll have learned from this and will hopefully never be so reckless again.

At least you were able to fairly quickly get up to speed due to his banking etc
I say to mine that nothing is ever so bad that they can’t tell me about it and by not going nuclear you have shown this to your son, that he had a big problem but you were able to stay fairly calm and try and solve it for him.
I think after the police have seen the evidence your son should come off social media etc as you say he will likely come to this conclusion himself but if he doesn’t I think you should delete them, so he can’t anxiously await them popping up anywhere.
Like you I have had numerous conversations with my similar aged children, one of them I’m pretty confident wouldn’t send anything (ASD and very conscious of rules) but our middle one can be a loose canon and thinks he knows best. For this reason neither of mine have TikTok, snap chat etc
Parenting is a fine line between keeping your child safe but not making them so different to their peers that they are ostracised, I’m super lucky that within my children’s friendship groups other than WhatsApp parents seem to have a similar mindset to ours. It’s very different if your teen is surrounded by friends that are allowed it and at some point you do have to be able to trust that they’ve listened to advise you’ve given.

Ps after the issue with my friend I drilled into my kids that if anyone asks you for a picture of anything it’s likely they could share (I told them it could be by accident but that was just to soften the blow!). I told them girls don’t particularly like seeing boys private’s as a by the way!!

Thanks for this really supportive helpful comment. I do check his phone however this whole thing happened within the space of less than 24 hours. Most kids have phones these days. It’s down to parents to educate them about the dangers. But ultimately they will make mistakes. We are all only human.

I hope your comment made you feel good and I’m sure you’re a perfect parent with faultless children.

It’s completely different if the victim is a child and a pedophile has taken indecent images.

What an absolute wank of a post.

I'm a teacher, not in the UK, but this happens everywhere. We've had the police in and had them talk to students about this. As upset as you are, time to wipe those tears away now and be a lot stronger (at least in front of your son).

If you haven't already, please tell him that despite your initial shock, you are nothing but proud of him. Proud that he could put aside his embarrassment and tell you and your husband what happened, even if you did have to drag it out of him. Not to scare you, but there have been cases in many countries of teens killing themselves rather than speaking about this with their family.

It doesn't matter how clever your son normally is, he's still a teen, this is a sophisticated scam and he is a victim in all of this. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't a scam just about money, it's one that is deeply embarrassing for him and he will never forget it. But, remind him, adults, competent and clever adults, still get scammed every day.

As an adult it's easy to wonder how he could fall for it, how he could ignore and safety talks you've had, he's still a teen, with hormones and they just don't think with adult brains.

Yes, it's a horrible thing to happen, but he's still here and safe. I would suggest, when you talk to the police, ask if their team that deals with these sort of things have any recommendations for counselling, if not, try talking to child safety or welfare at his school. He must truly be mortified, hug him again and find someone outside the family for him to talk to, who can also reassure him that despite some mistakes made, this wasn't his fault. Schedule some extra family time, pizza, movies, just keep him close and at home or with close friends until this has had some time. He needs to see that life will go on and he will be okay.

I'm a teacher.

The irony ,read the full thread before you jump on with your sanctimonious bollox ,it's there in black and white if you care to read it.

Presumably your child doesn't have a secret phone, as one of my close friends found out about their 14 year old when they behaved inappropriately online.
The real phone was locked down nicely with no social media. The other one not so much.

Was he expecting nude pictures back?

Perhaps at least read the full thread if YOU'RE going post ,not even the full thread just a few posts on where I apologised. I'm sure it makes you feel better though to chastise me.

I think that's a very niave (and smug) statement

Poor lad, but great that your relationship is such that he told you. Hopefully nothing more will come of this and it will be a difficult but essential lesson in how to keep himself safe online. Which extends not just to not sending compromising photos, but to other things he might in future years think about posting on social media (drunken nights out with friends etc.). Employers do look at those things these days. I hope he’s ok. This is something very common which happens to a lot of people of all ages, though teens are especially vulnerable.

E-safety is covered repeatedly from primary school onward in England (and almost certainly the other UK countries).

Parents can reiterate and deepen their children's understanding by discussing it with them regularly AND saying they should never, ever send photos or information to people they don't know. If it's someone they do know in real life, never, ever send photos of your private parts - because even if it's a (current) girl/boyfriend, you don't know WHO they might share it with.

Here is a message so this doesn't happen again. Simply do not send any nude photos of yourself.

Oh your poor lad! It's a horrible situation, but be proud that he's told you the whole story, I think that makes you a good Mum. I hope it all gets sorted out soon, and that he's learned not to trust internet strangers (albeit the hard way,).

Thank you for your post exactly what CEOP said. These “superior” parents should be ashamed of their posts.