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.

Is this not a good reason to ban smartphones or at the very least social media for under 16s? Whenever threads to do that come up, everyone says "oh they just need to be educated about responsible use" - school time shouldn't be wasted on something as obvious as this with attainment plummeting. Why can't people just see, as this thread clearly demonstrates it, education is not enough, ban them already

Their parents are either lax or not savvy,it is possible to ensure they don't have their own accounts. That won't protect them from what they see on others devices but it does limit the damage. At the very least the parents have gone to greater lengths to ensure SM is something worth extra measures to be protected from. I know kids who genuinely don't even want SM.

My son did almost the exact same but he believed he was messaging a male friend. Turns out the friend had their phone hacked and it was Nigerian scammers. I got in touch with the police straight away. Everything turned out ok, they had to put my son down as a suspect in a crime for sending the pic but absolutely nothing bad happened to him.

@MumWifeOther you are rather quick to assume that you banning social media for your child will only have positive consequences. I'd not be so quick with the smugness if I were you. Quite aside from the chance of circumventing your bans and checks; you are making your child the odd one out, the one who can't communicate the same way as his peers, who can't be part of understanding the social media of kids by trying it out for himself. And when he is permitted to have social media (16?18?) he will be doing so from a position of having had no experience at all of what to do - and friends who have been happily communicating online without him for years.
Wrapping our kids in cotton wool and never letting them leave the supervising sight of an adult would undoubtedly keep them safer - but at what long term price? Do not assume your child will ever be grateful for teaching them how to be a 20th century child in the 21st century.

I agree with @joanofaardvark . The people who my kids went to uni with who had had the tightest restrictions went wild in a big way, taking a lot of risks, which they may have navigated better if they had had more ownership younger. One girl had her phone taken off her every night when she came home, which seems extreme when she was completely free at university. I think this kind of parenting teaches children to be deceptive.

The people who my kids went to uni with who had had the tightest restrictions went wild in a big way,

To the extent of sending nude pics of themselves just because someone they didn't know asked them to?

Maybe yes, but I do think the education angle is still important. In my daughter's case she does also have friends and cousins who are older than her and have a different level of access to things.

Plus they also do need the education for when we they are allowed phones/social media. As this thread shows, scammers are targeting adults as well and many adults are also vulnerable to exploitation and scams.

I think the big problem is that it's ALL on parents and many just don't have the time or ability to constantly be checking for new ways of monitoring or restricting. I'm utterly shit with all that and I know I won't be the only one. As I said earlier in the thread, it's easier to say no than roll back, and it's easier to say no than constantly have to try and keep up with latest developments and that's the position I take (for now), but we also need a society-wide solution, the same as absolutely anything else that is harmful to children. We need belt AND braces.

I tend to go deeper with my children I talk to them about online groomers and peadophiles. When my girls were younger I regularly checked their phones like I do with my son, he is a gamer and plays with his friends. The door must be kept open and I receive the phone at the end of the day. I read all his WhatsApp messages to make sure he is talking to the same kids. I am not leaving it up to the school they are my responsibility. I had sex education at school and yet I still got pregnant at school age. No offence to the teachers on this thread but it takes a parent to set boundaries and bring them up. As you are seeing with the poor ops son it can happen to anyone and if I was her I put stricter rules in place.

My kids can run around their uni town naked for all I care. As long as I get them to 18 then they can take on adult responsibilities.

No they said not. And my meeting lasted approximately 6 minutes so I think they know they are onto nothing. She said there are multiple cases of this per week.

As an exercise, count the number of people on this thread alone who have had their children send nudes and then be extorted.

It’s a perfect example of why relying solely on education doesn’t work.

Social media isn’t new. We’ve had 20 years of educating children about the dangers of social media, and it hasn’t worked. The number of anxious, stressed, depressed and suicidal teenagers is at an all-time high.

Social media companies have also had 20 years to make their platforms safer for teenagers. They haven’t done it.

The next step is to follow Australia and France and ban social media for children outright. This is no longer about individual parenting choices or education. It is a public health and safeguarding issue.

Hi @worriedmum223
I've only read your posts, not all the replies so sorry if this has already been mentioned, but it may be worth looking at ChildLine website page for info https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/online-mobile-safety/sexting/

In particular scrolling down to the section shown in attached screenshot (ie mention of CEOP)

ChildLine staff will also listen to and support your son if he wants or needs someone outside the family to talk to.

Best wishes to you both.

Edited re autocorrect typo.

No I went to the station. And to be honest I asked that it could be avoided unless absolutely necessary. He is already upset and embarrassed enough. I don’t think the police could say anything different to what we already have and I just want him to move on from it now.

OP do you think you would be happy to copy and paste the text of the messages here?
It would be really good to have a concrete example of what was so persuasive. Obviously changing identifiable details.

Oh your poor lad. I think the punishment has already been dealt & I doubt he’ll ever do anything like this again.

I would suggest making his profile private & see if you can keep the identity of his followers private.

I can imagine his regret & worry & yours to. He’s just a kid & I doubt these pictures will be leaked. There is no gain to be had especially when they know you’re involved. What nasty scumbags these scammers are. Keep an eye on your lad, he’s going to feel quite vulnerable for a while now & he needs your love & support more than any judgement

No advice but I have a 14 year old boy and I really feel for him, and you, hope you are both ok poor kid, love and strength to you! X

Your poor lad, but glad he spoke to you. Talk to the school DSL tomorrow, drop them an email and let them know what’s happened. They will also have some good advice. And it may prompt an assembly / lesson on this so that any other pupil who may have been targeted and is scared can be helped. He will be feeling dreadful, but big hug and lesson learned!

I was subject to images being taken of myself when I was a child. I'll call it what I like thanks. It's not up to you to police the language that i use of what I went through.

I don't think we need to see the messages to know what was so persuasive.

A fourteen year old boy flooded with hormones
Confronted with a very attractive profile picture of a female who appears to have slid into his DMs and picked him out as someone she finds attractive.
A few carefully worded text conversations, complete with current teen slang and the right emojis would be enough to lure many boys in.

Then it's not a stretch to throw in a sprinkling of "I think ur really hot" type stuff, followed by "send nudes ;)" and it would be game over.

I'm so sorry to hear this has happened to your son. I come across cases like these often at work and they are all absolutely heartbreaking. The culprits are often based in Nigeria and target vulnerable teenage boys by using manuals that they circulate among themselves. Because they're outside of the UK jurisdiction, the police often find it hard to prosecute them but there have been cases where they are making a concerted effort to extradite the individuals concerned as they target multiple young victims at the same time.

How did your son send the pictures? As he is underage these constitute child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and US social media providers are therefore under an obligation under US law to make a report containing the images and information about the offending account used to solicit them to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) - both Meta / WA and TikTok do this. Although a US based non-profit, NCMEC acts as effectively a global clearing house and will proactively send these reports to law enforcement in relevant countries worldwide to aid in their investigations. The social media companies also take enforcement action against these accounts internally.

To be completely honest, the offenders can - and do - carry out their threats when they are particularly nasty individuals. But they usually do it straightaway if they are going to, so fingers crossed they won't in your son's case. I hope he feels better soon - sextortion is an awful sickening crime.