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.

I am so sorry to read this. What absolute vile scum these scammers are. A 14 yo is just so vulnerable and most teenagers do stupid things they regret - I know I certainly did.
Hope your son is ok OP. Hard lesson to learn but going forward I'd trust him implicitly vis a vis SM use as doubt he's going to fall for anything like this again.

@MumWifeOtherYou really are unpleasant.

Thank you for sharing. I can see how easily this can happen and how far it can escalate. My eldest is a couple of years behind your DC and I can see I need to make some changes here.

I hope your DC feels better soon. It's horrible to lose some of their innocence in such a sudden way due to such targeted and manipulative people.

@worriedmum223 hug him tight. He told you and you’ve handled it so well.

Teenage brains do silly things and social Media is part of adolescence regardless what other smug parents say.

It shows how much he trusts you OP if he's able to come to you when he's troubled,this is a really good thing.

Couldn't agree more. It's definitely not the end of the world, but I can imagine how mortifyingly embarrassing it is for the boy.
He's learnt a very valuable lesson in the midst of this horrible scam......he's so much wiser going forward.

Your poor soon, my heartbreaks for him and you. So pleased you’ve called the police and can follow their instructions on what to do next. Please above all else tell your son not to worry, he is safe and it will be sorted.

I know this happening to 2 people.

First was my 11 year old neighbours daughter after starting at secondary school. Someone said they were a boy from her year so she added them and over a few hours was made to take photos, then videos…. The person threatened to harm her family, she was terrified and done what she was told too. When she finally told her mum they sent all the photos/ videos to all her contacts which included everyone in her school year. It was horrific, person was abroad and police said it happens all the time. Poor girl never returned to school, made multiple attempts to end her life but now at the year of 15 she finally okay.

second was my best friends 21 year old. Spilt up with his girlfriend and was chatting to someone via a dating app. Sent some photos and then they demanded money or would share. He sent money then they demanded more. Thankfully he is really close with his mum and told her and she called the police. They didn’t share his photos…. He was absolutely mortified and had a huge effect on his mental health.

You son will get over this and even if they share image all he has to say is it’s AI so I hope he knows everything will be fine and to follow police advice then move on.

I have spoken to the police yes. Quite quick and not much said by them. They took the number and profile details again but nothing else. Didn’t look at son’s phone or at the chat itself. I don’t think they will be able to do anything with it being an international number but I have it logged and they have the number. I’ve now deleted and blocked the chats and hopefully we can move on from it.

I’ve lost count of the number of times my kids have told me about friends of theirs who secretly have SM as their parents don’t allow it.

I’d be very wary of being so judgemental if I were you.

Sorry if Im repeating another poster but I haven't read all the replies.
Just wanted to say most of these scams are Nigerian gangs. I watched a BBC Documentary on exactly this scam just a couple of months ago. Its on iplayer and called Blackmailed: The Sextortion Killers.
Its quite harrowing. They actually interview the guys that do this. They just think every western person is so loaded they can just easily access and hand over money.
It may be worth a watch, but suggest you watch it without your son.

We all parent differently op.

I'm like you, I educate, keep open communication, and trust my kids under my guidance. There are more problems with people who ban everything and then let them loose as adults with no experience ime.

I've known a few teens with strict parents who outright ban everything get in trouble with the police over online communications as soon as they get online, or they are able to sneak their friends phones and make their own pages on SM without their parents knowing etc.

Your son made a mistake, he will get through it with your support, it's a massive deal right now, but in 5 years time he will only think about the lessons he's learned, rather than what he's feeling now.

@Franpie it’s all tech , yes one might have to be savvy but you can easily track with the right technology

@worriedmum223 hope it all turns out ok, you don’t need to attack anyone with an opposite view, you posted here and some of us apply different thinking (perhaps due to nasty experiences ). Either way very glad your son is safe, most important bit!

Agreed. I grew up with someone who’s parents were very righteous about great they were for having so many rules for their teenagers.

Said teenager would lie about being at the local high street when they were in central London, lie about sleeping over a mates house when they were in fact paralytic drunk with a large group in the local park at 10pm, lie about having a social media account, lie about having a boyfriend. Funnily enough the more relaxed parents were the only ones who actually knew what their kids were doing and where they were.

Unfortunately they usually operate outside the country eg in India, Cambodia etc where the UK authorities don't have any jurisdiction.

@worriedmum223 they usually move on to the next victim if they realize they don't make any money from your DS, so continue to block them and drill it into him that even if they try to contact him via other means he has to keep blocking until they stop, don't engage at all.

And you're doing the right thing by contacting the police. I'm not sure but is there a way to disable or suspend his tiktok account?

My daughter is in P6 in Scotland and has had online safety sessions repeatedly for a number of years. I did ask her 'again?!' at one point, but I didn't mean in a disparaging way, just in the sense that I was surprised they seem to be taking it very seriously. The school is poor generally on communication but when it comes to online safety for some reason, we get stuff home all the time about it. I'm glad for it.

In around P4 she asked what 'send nudes' meant as she had heard it somewhere, thankfully not online or anything. I'm glad she asked as we basically just built on everything she had already done at school and home around online safety other themes like consent and peer pressure.

Do I think it's enough and that she's immune to pressure or scams? Not by a long shot. Threads like this really reinforce how vulnerable children are and how people who would exploit them know exactly where to hit them. I'm glad for mothers sharing their experiences on here as it's a constant learning curve for us all.

I don't think that's a universal experience though as my mum was pretty relaxed and I was good at wheedling a later curfew out of her, but she didn't know when I was in a park drunk as a skunk. She didn't know when I was sneaking out of our own home. I lied to her all the time. I told her roughly where I was going when I was leaving the village and always mentioned the main girls I would be with but she still didn't know what I was doing or who with.

As a teacher, I am very aware that all children and teens are capable of doing things - stupid, thoughtless, mean, risky things - that their parents simply will not and cannot believe until they see it with their own eyes. There's nothing out of the ordinary about your DS, OP, and nothing wrong with your parenting. You seem caring, astute, and switched on. I'm just thinking how lucky and wise you are to have seen something was wrong and to have got it out of him, rather than him resorting to more drastic measures. It's a very painful lesson for him to have to learn, but at least he's learnt it now. Good luck in the future.

There’s an App called Qustodio - it’s for parents to help minitor phones for young people, you can set the settings, you can see what they are looking at and get alerted if the try to find anything that could potentially cause harm.
we’ve used this when our children were younger, it’s really helpful and can help with conversions.

I’m so sorry your son, and you, are going through through this!

Don’t beat yourself up OP …it happened….could have been a lot lot worse….you are dealing with it….so many perfect parents on here eh who just love to twist that knife ….ignore them ….they are no better than you

Same thing happened with my BIL. Police were useless!! But he just blocked the scammers, changed all his social media login passwords, and moved on with his life.

Nothing happened, and the pics weren't identifiable as him as it was just bottom half, so could have been anyone. We laugh about it now but he was VERY upset at the time and me and DH had to provide a lot of comfort and reassurance. Your son knows what he did and his lesson is now learnt, try and offer comfort and have an important conversation later down the line when it's not so raw.

Darling you are not to blame for this and neither is your son. The only people to blame are the criminals. You are the victims. I hope your son gets the support from the Police that my son got when he was the victim of a homophobic assault a few years ago. It really helped him to recover.
Well done to you for raising a boy that can confide in you. This will be a bitter pill to swallow but he will move on.

I think the fact he told you shows what a good mum you are and is testimony to your relationship. Plenty of boys feel they can't and react very badly indeed.

Poor kid. Hope these people burn in hell.

This happened to my friend's son and he was 20. Thankfully he told his mum who reassured him he had nothing to be ashamed of and told him to block the accounts blackmailing him and pay no money. No photos/videos were ever sent to his online friends. His mum hid from him her anger/incredulity at his behaviour as at the time he was a lonely, vulnerable young man being exploited by very clever criminals.