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.

Please remember that you can't stop kids making mistakes,and you can't protect them from everything. We have to start slowly letting go and allow them to trust us to be there when they do make mistakes. Seeing my daughter losing friends from suicide and seeing what she went through, I'm very glad that when she did get into trouble she was able to come to us.

They need love and support, and boundaries of course. But being sanctimonious is not helpful to anyone, especially not your children. We need to be preparing them for reality.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Aussie ban. I feel like it's too late. And I think letting them completely loose at 16 is not sensible either.

I think I'd prefer an opt in only porn ban than a SM ban.

Totally agree with everything you've posted.

I can post as much as I see fit on a public forum, but besides this, I’m replying to a poster who kept on pressing about what I would do if my child deleted their messages…. I’d more ask why you’re purposely looking for my subsequent posts replying to other posters but whatever.

As I said previously, my intial post was not for self gratification, but to actually draw attention to the dangers of allowing children to have social media (and actually now we’re here, to make bank transfers!?????) - I don’t think it’s okay for you to ask for no lectures. This whole thread serves as a stark reminder of how aware parents need to be in this day and age. You dropped the ball, I’d like to warn other parents not to. It’s a subject I feel very passionate about as I’m personally disgusted at how many parents allow their kids access to social media and wish they would stop.

Agree, there's alot of parents who buy their children a smartphone and havent got a clue what they are doing.
Alot of parents are weak, thats what it boils down too.

Precisely this. If we give a child a phone, it’s on us as an adult to set boundaries and rules. Allowing social media because “everyone else has got it” is frankly pathetic!! As is suggesting that because a child may lie and find ways around your boundaries it means you might as well not have them in place!??

The fact is, 9/10 most of this can avoided with hands on and robust monitoring.

Get him a new SIM card with different number on. Tell him they won't know his new number. All the the police can do is issue a crime number. He didn't pay them the money so nothing to reclaim. Tell him it's common for teen boys to be scammed and he's learned a hard lesson. He won't be so gullible again.

Yep. Nearly three years ago Briannah Ghey was murdered.
Alot of that was centered around smartphone use and parents not having a clue what was going on.

There used to be a saying too.
Dont talk to strangers.
😐
Alright for kids to talk to people online they don't know though??????

@MumWifeOtherNot that you know of, let’s face it with your smug superior attitude I doubt your children will ever be able to confide in you about anything.

I realise how concerning it is. I am mortified, devastated and have questioned a lot about myself and my son this weekend. Thankfully your unforgiving, nasty attitude is in the minority on this thread and most people are able to accept that all humans (especially young, hormone addled teenage boys) will make mistakes.

Your comments have honestly made me feel terrible, I have been in tears. I was already feeling shit and to be told you are a bad parent when you already feel like this is horrible. Objectively I know I’m not and I know my son is a normal, healthy boy who simply fucked up like we all do. But in the midst of it all, you have made a bad situation even worse. I hope you are happy with yourself. I would respectfully ask that you just stop now. You have made your point.

We had this. Exactly the same. It was the worst thing. We contacted the police although they didn’t do much. Please reassure your son, he’s been daft but so many teenage boys get scammed this way. Just resssure him. They’ll be onto the next one now. We’re three years in from it. Horrific at the time but now forgotten in the main. Big hugs.

But honesty two fingers to all the smug posters on here. We had talked to my son about not to believe strangers on the internet, he had been through it all at school and he still got scammed!!! He was 16. It happens, please don’t beat yourself up. Just give him a big hug.

There are some miserable cunts in this thread.

Don't beat yourself up OP. This kind of shit happens. You can't follow a teenager around 24/7. They'll get access through their friends phones and computers if they want to.

Hi OP is it not possible for you to block that poster, if not please ignore the nasty comments.
It’s perfectly obvious that you are a thoughtful caring mother battling as so many are against the internet that has stealthy woven itself into all our children’s/ grandchildren’s lives.
The most important thing of all is that you have been there for your son, you have surrounded him with love and you have taken all the right steps.
It’s every mothers nightmare and you have come through it, you are not a bad parent you are a star.

Thank you. I’m not usually a crier but this has really gotten to me. Ds seems a lot better now, I’m still reeling but we are trying to move on with the appropriate changes and a lesson learnt.

I really wish MN would implement the block feature!

No, you are missing my point.

Which is that you don’t 100% know what your teenagers are doing 100% of the time.

You seem to think this could never happen to your children because you’re a better parent. That is a very blinkered and foolish view.

But 1 thing is for sure, should your children ever get themselves into a bit of bother, you have made it very difficult for them to come to you and admit what they have done.

Fortunately for OP, her child was able to admit his fuck-up to her and receive appropriate support.

There are cases of far too many teenage boys feeling they are unable to approach their parents and end up taking their own lives.

OP, don’t waste your tears on this troll.

Thank you for this thread. It prompted me to go and have another chat with my DS14 about these scams and share with him your DS’s story and how easy it is to fall into this predicament. Hopefully this thread will have prompted lots more mums to do the same.

I've had a chat with my 16 year old. It's hard to bring these things up but I told him I had read about it on Mumsnet and wanted to know what he thought about it. I also reiterated to come and talk to me if anything like that happened.

So thank you OP for the thread. I am sorry this happened but you are navigating a much more usual parenting style than those who never make any mistakes, and I am grateful to you for sharing.

Sure but why do scammers use this script? Because it works....

Teenage boys - and I can't think of a more vulnerable age than 14 for this kind of thing - are hovering around that breaking away stage. They are still kids but on the cusp of being something else. Their brains are re-wiring all over the place, hormones are peaking and it's easy to see why even the most 'head together' boys could, if approached in the right way at the right moment, be caught out.

The scenario I outlined upthread, whilst basic and full of red flags, is fairly standard for scammers because they are fucking practiced at this and they know exactly where the weak spots on a young teen boy are and how to tap into them.

Quite often the scammers send photos (mocked up ones of a teenage girl) to lure them to share their own nude photo. Teenage boys and hormones, they are all over the place. I don’t think any boy is immune. I was so shocked that my streetwise, popular, cynical son got scammed. A boy near us committed suicide. We need to talk to our boys, warn them but also don’t judge them if they do eff up. They need to know they can talk to us about anything.

Beat it? You’re using offensive language and then telling people to beat it when they ask you not to because it’s hurtful? And you’re acting like the arsehole in this situation is me? Riiiight. No. I won’t ‘beat it’ you egoist. I didn’t demand. I asked nicely. I even said please. Twice. Don’t fucking talk to me again because you won’t get a response.

Do the scammers know his email and phone number? These need changing if so.

tiktok account needs deleting too.

This happened to my DS and the police were brilliant with him. They emphasised that he was the victim and not the criminal and explained that it was unlikely they’d do any more than threaten him. He had the presence of mind to message me whilst they were on the phone to him to say he was being blackmailed and I was able to call the police at the time it was happening. I wouldn’t be worried about your ds having contact with the police - they were amazing with my ds and, despite the fact that it was massively upsetting for him, he said himself that it was a great lesson learned. He has had no further contact from the fraudsters. He was told that they’re just interested in getting as much money as possible, fast. If you don’t pay up they just move on to the next person. Please let him know he’s the victim and not the criminal. This helped my ds.

I don't think your son fucked up, he was the victim of a scam and blackmail. The scammers are 'professionals', they do this day in day out, they've learnt what works, what they need to say to get people to send a photo and if they weren't good at tricking people they'd of given up and this scam wouldn't exist.

I also don't think you're a bad parent. Your bank alerts meant you found out as soon as your son tried to transfer money. You talked to him and he told you what was going on. That's positive, you found out pretty much imediately. Don't feel bad. Also please don't tighten controls on your son so much he feels like he's being punished and keep an eye on him (I'm sure you are) as mentally teenagers have struggled with being trapped in this sort of scam. I also think it's a good idea to talk to the safeguarding lead at your sons school just so they're aware and can support your son if needed.

Honestly, despite what some posters say, it could happen in any family.

I doubt anyone would prosecute him in these circumstances but it is classed as child pornography and the perpetrators need to face consequences.

I haven't RTFT so this point has probably been made already.

In the very unlikely even that the photos are ever made public to anyone your DS knows, I would just say they were fake and were created by the scammers to try to blackmail him.

It's very possible to fake photos, and let's face it, anyone who was sent an unsolicited nude photo of a friend or acquaintance would much rather believe it was just a fake. So they would be only too keen to get on board with that theory.